Tea for twos

Braxton & Gräwe, Lacy & Waldron

by Ed Hazell

Piano-and-saxophone jazz duets have a special appeal. The best strike a balance between the piano's harmonic richness and the saxophone's color and line. They can have the intimacy of a two-way conversation or capitalize on the grand scale made possible by the piano's orchestral potential. New releases by the duos of Anthony Braxton & Georg Gräwe and Steve Lacy & Mal Waldron attest to the format's limitless possibilities.

These days, Braxton's occasional duet projects are pretty much busman's holidays from composing. He's generally in a relaxed and generous mood when he does them, though some have sounded as if he were merely going through the motions. This is decidedly not the case on Duo (Amsterdam) 1991 (Okkadisk), a challenging, enormously exciting set of improvisations with German pianist Georg Gräwe. Like Braxton's most satisfying keyboard partner, Marilyn Crispell, Gräwe brings quick reflexes to the music and a style that mixes contemporary classical and free jazz vocabularies in a densely detailed, confrontational style that leaves Braxton no choice but to meet him head on.

It takes a few minutes for them to settle down, but sparks fly after they find their bearings about a third of the way into the first of the album's three improvisations. Braxton, on alto, slowly paces long meandering lines as Gräwe gathers steam. As treble bursts and bass-clef rumbles surge in waves beneath him, Braxton fades back and lets the pianist have the foreground for a dancing staccato passage. The performance advances and retreats several more times, but the flow of the music is natural and firmly directed.

The last two duets are even more focused and intense than the first. "Duet II" begins in relative tranquillity, but Braxton is soon scattering saw-toothed triplets and sounding the alarm with shockingly human-sounding alto-saxophone wails. Gräwe gallops along the rutted road of Braxton's solo, rapidly jabbing his own spiky lines in among Braxton's. Apparently spent by the expenditure of energy, they subside while Braxton switches to soprano saxophone, but Gräwe kicks the music back into high gear and takes the upper hand as they draw to a conclusion. The short "Duet III" is an explosion of rippling, intertwining lines that ends the performance on an ecstatic high note.

The first-time meeting between Braxton and Gräwe builds off the thrill of the unknown. Steve Lacy and Mal Waldron feed off their familiarity with each other on their new Communiqué (Soul Note). They are different players in many ways, but their styles draw from a common source -- Thelonious Monk. Both are lean, no-nonsense players who pare all extraneous notes from their solos and use space judiciously. But for all their minimalism, they express a wide range of emotions with wit and generosity of spirit.

Their latest meeting is characteristically thoughtful and laced with surprises. At first impression their renditions of tunes by Monk, Mingus, and pianist Elmo Hope sound skeletal. Lacy's approach to the melodies is incisive but stark, and Waldron's aerated comping alternates dark chords and single notes. Yet there is plenty of meat on the bones. On "Smooch," a Mingus rarity, Lacy paints an uneasy portrait of romantic anticipation that is sympathetically fleshed out by Waldron's sensual chords. "Blue Monk" is a pithy excursion through a range of blues moods, from earthy to sad to blithely casual. They bring remarkable variety to Elmo Hope's "Roll On," with Lacy building on ever more distant variations on the theme and Waldron striking off with a set of themes and variations that sound like a new composition. Each gets an unaccompanied solo that showcases his individual strengths. But the best moments on this album -- as with the Braxton-Gräwe duo -- are when they are alone together.