Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes - Double Portrait

Album review. Fifty minutes of absorbing and thoughtful jazz played by two fine musicians.

Blue Note

Release date: June 8th 2010

Availability: CD, MP3 Download




Pianist Renee Rosnes has established a strong reputation in jazz. Her early work with drummer Billy Drummond, Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson - sadly, those Blue Note albums with Joe Henderson have still not been made available - was followed by a breakthrough period as a solo performer with Blue Note that produced the fine albums 'Ancestors', 'As We are Now' and 'Art and Soul'. And in recent years she has been a mainstay of the SF Jazz Collective.

Pianist Bill Charlap is similarly well established. He has been recording with Blue Note since 2000 and has performed with Tony Bennett, Phil Woods and Gerry Mulligan. He served recently as the musical director of The Blue Note 7, formed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the label.

Photo credit: Nick Ruechel

The couple married in 2007. It was natural, then, to think about a piano duet album. 'Double Portrait' is the result.

There are references to past greats that the couple have worked with in their perceptive versions of Gerry Mulligan's ballad 'Little Glory', Wayne Shorter's 'Ana Maria' and Joe Henderson 'Inner Urge'. And there are fine takes on the American Songbook with Frank Loesser's 'Never Will Mary', Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz's 'Dancing In the Dark' and 'My Man's Gone Now' (a tune often performed by Bill Evans) from the George Gershwin opera 'Porgy and Bess'.

Lyle Mays' 'Chorinho' provides a strong opener and the song list is completed by the Renee Rosnes original 'The Saros Cycle'.

The outcome is fifty minutes of absorbing and thoughtful jazz played by two fine musicians. Those two grand pianos in their apartment certainly have seen considerable use!

Recommended.







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Related reviews:

Blue Note 7 - Mosaic

Renee Rosnes - As We Are Now


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