To my knowledge the first full records of piano-trumpet duets were recorded by Oscar Peterson. He teamed up for duets with Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Clark Terry, Jon Faddis and Harry "Sweets" Edison. Most of these albums are pure joy, with bluesy pieces or standards, played seemingly effortless, without artistic pretence, just made for the fun of the music and the interplay itself. And if duets weren't enough, Gillespie, Eldridge, Hubbard and Terry teamed up with Peterson to form the Trumpet Kings. Yet over the years, changes took place. Today, piano-trumpet duets have become less rhythmic, less swinging than in the 50s or 60s, and evolved into the ideal line-up for very intimate, emotional and creative explorations of various moods. And there is of course also Chet Baker's duo with Paul Bley ("Diane"). There aren't that many records with this line-up anymore, which is unfortunate, because the combination works extremely well, I think. The absolute masters of the piano-trumpet duo today are Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura for the more avant-garde, and Enrico Rava and Stefano Bollani for the more intimistic mainstream genre. Both have produced superb albums this year.The contemporary trumpet piano duets :
Tom Arthurs & Richard Fairhurst - Mesmer
Uri Caine & Paolo Fresu - Things
Satoko Fujii & Natsuki Tamura - In Krakow In November
Satoko Fujii & Natsuki Tamura - How Many?
Satoko Fujii & Natsuki Tamura - Clouds
Matthew Goodheart & Wadada Leo Smith - Interludes Of Breath And Substance
Enrico Rava & Ran Blake - Duo En Noir
Enrico Rava & Stefano Bollani - Rava Plays Rava
Enrico Rava & Stefano Bollani - The Third Man
Enrico Rava & Renato Sellani - Radio Days
Russ Johnson & Mick Rossi - New Math
Kenny Wheeler & John Taylor - Where Do We Go From Here?
Paul Bley & Kenny Wheeler - Touche
Martial Solal & Dave Douglas - Rue de Seine
Hugh Ragin & Marc Sabatella - Gallery
György Szabados & Miklós Mákó - A Szépség Szive
Tomasz Stańko & Andrzej Kurylewicz - Korozje
Ruby Braff & Roger Kellaway - Inside & Out
Jerry Gonzalez & Federico Lechner - A Primera Vista
Suggestions are welcome.
Thanks
Stef
16 comments:
The first? Not Oscar P by a long shot. Try Louis Armstrong & Earl Hines, "Weather Bird".
Thanks Nate, I'm not an expert in the pre-sixties music, as you notice. I'll check it out.
stef
Nate, was this an entire album? I just found back this one track "Weather Bird" on the "Armstrong & Hines Vol. 4".
How about "Radio Days", an album by Enrico Rava and Renato Sellani, released on Philology?
Re: "Weatherbird": It's just the one track--this is before the "album" was invented in the current sense of the word.
PS re: recent trumpet/piano duet albums, there are several by Ruby Braff, esp. the sublime Inside & Out with Roger Kellaway.
Also:
Jesse Stacken/Kirk Knuffke [SteepleChase]
Larry
Aki Takase & Rudi Mahall
Aki Takase & Louis Scalvis
should be included!
Some of the tracks on the album Grant and Matheny are pretty good, notably Boplicity. Also I don't know if that album counts as it is a flugelhorn/piano duet. Artists are Darrell Grant and Dmitri Matheny.
Also Ruby Braff and Ellis Larkins recorded two sessions of duets in 1955. Now available as 2x2
We also forgot the gorgeous 2Together by Warren Vache and Bill Charlap!!! (See Penguin Jazz for high praise)
One more absolute gem: Clark Terry: One on One. 14 trumpet - piano duets by grand masters. Thepianists include Monty Alexander, geri Allen, Kenny Barron, Tommy Flanagan, Don Friedman, Benny Green, Sir Roland Hanna, Barry Harris, Eric Lewis, John Lewis, Marian McPartland, Junio Mance, Eric Reed and Billy Taylor. And they are all on top form. Beat that!
One more forgotten wonder: Harry Beckett - Passion and Possession (duets with Joachim Kuhn, Django Bates, Keith Tippett). (1991 ITM) Rare as...
Enrico Rava with Ran Blake - Duo en Noir
Martial Solal & Dave Douglas - Rue de Seine
This original post is so old I wonder if anyone is looking at these late replies...
Harry edison and Earl Hines. Great Duet!
This is a great post. Interesting that piano/sax duets are so common. I own more than 100 of them. But piano/trumpet duets are relatively rare.
But thanks to this post, I now have 15 piano/trumpet duets (from 1956 to 2021) thanks to these recommendations!
One that must be mentioned and one of the very best is:
Harmony - Roy Hargrove and Mulgrew Miller - 2021 - Resonance (from 2 live concerts)
Completely agree! Piano and trumpet are a wonderful combo, glad I found this post. Only youtube, but this video gave me shivers https://youtu.be/vDX0g5hHWks
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