[cubbienathan]

Hey everyone,

Was wondering if anybody knew any good jazz duets. Me and another guy are doing a duets concert, and I think we need a jazz piece to fill out the program. Something not too terribly hard, but it seems like most of the jazz duets I come across are sight-readable and not particularly interesting and/or they are written for educational purposes. I know there's a lot of quartet stuff, but I'm having a hard time finding duets.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[swperry1]

You could...arrange your own.
You could...cut down a four-part arrangement into two parts.
You could...transcribe a jazz duet you like.
Or you could play some old, boring, educational piece.

 

[dctwells]

Hey everyone,

Was wondering if anybody knew any good jazz duets. Me and another guy are doing a duets concert, and I think we need a jazz piece to fill out the program. Something not too terribly hard, but it seems like most of the jazz duets I come across are sight-readable and not particularly interesting and/or they are written for educational purposes. I know there's a lot of quartet stuff, but I'm having a hard time finding duets.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

What are you doing for the rest of the concert?

 

[cubbienathan]

Bach Double Violin Concerto (on soprano)
Dubois Six Caprices

The rest is solo stuff.

 

[cubbienathan]

We were going to do this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGPZ6aLWcnI
But it ended up being a little too much for us. Probably could have pulled it off but it was going to take way more prep time than we have available.

 

[dctwells]

I think the trouble with jazz duets is that they are either written as etudes to teach about jazz phrasing (Fishman or Niehaus duets) or they are written as more creative vehicles and require a high level of musicianship and improvisation ability.

Not sure where you?re at, but the Lennie Niehaus ?10 Jazz Inventions? are pretty fun to play and listen to as far as duets go that you can read down from top to bottom.

 

[cubbienathan]

Ok cool, I'll check that out. Thanks.

 

[saxoclese]

A little known treasure is "Bop Duets" by Bugs Bower. The book I have contains volumes 1, 2, and 3 complete. They vary in difficulty depending on the tempo you choose, but all are fun to play and well written. Every duet from 12 to the end (39) also has chord changes so you could play with a rhythm section if you like. They are only 2 pages long with both part on the page (of course) so you might want to string 2 or 3 together. Publisher is Colin Publications NY.

 

[jgreiner]

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