The Jazz Duo

[Jazzy]

I play tenor sax and i've played duo with a piano bass drums and trumpet. Are there any things that i should be aware of. Does anyone have any tips on playing duo with specific instruments like those. thanx

[wersax]

Those are a lot of different instruments to be playing as a duet with, Jazzy! I'd be interested in the circumstances surrounding these performances..........I play a lot of duet gigs with pianists (country clubs, mainly) and it works well; "Real Book" gigs, you know? I've never worked a steady gig with a combo such as, sax/trumpet, sax/drums (although that can be fun!), or sax/bass.......I think for it to work, for me, one or more of the other instuments can be added in to make a trio, but you need the keyboard to make it work as a duo......you need a harmonic instrument to play with. A really great guitarist could do it, too, but that's harder to find..........I guess my advice would be that you've got to listen, very carefully to one another, regardless of the instrumentation, for the duo thing to work...........

[Ben McNicoll]

I played 2 sets as a duo with a guitarist I play with in a much larger (7 piece) group.

We took on some of the more interesting ballads that I haven't played too much before and when I listened to a recording later, there were some moments that convinced me it's really worth finding which repertoire works in that format.

The more straight ahead blowing tunes sounded really boring and the absence of drums and bass was really noticeable... whereas tunes with really strong harmonic/melodic shapes such as Blue in Green, Search for Peace were magical (if I do say so myself).

I think you have to break up your playing rhythmically a lot more and paradoxically leave more space in a duo than you do in a larger group.

Listen to some great duo albums...... among my favourites are Undercurrent and Intermodulation by Bill Evans and Jim Hall.


Cheers,

Ben

[pepper]

try Tete a Tete, by art pepper and george cables.

two players both playing for each other with the utmost respect

[Samh]

I dont know if anyone is still following this post but there is a great, hard to find, Cd of Zoot Sims with Joe Pass on guitar - Blues For Two. On Pablo Records and produced by Norman Granz.

Here's a taste:
http://tecep.com/bluz42.mp3

And now in a hasty edit to this post - I see it is now available from Amazon. I know I had a hellish job finding it 4 years ago.