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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Jeff Coffin & Jeff Sipe - The Art of the Duet



I first heard saxophonist Jeff Coffin last December with Bela Fleck's band in Calgary. He plays with a huge sound and a very clever sense of improvisation and creativity. I recently discovered that Coffin has released a duo album with Nashville drummer Jeff Sipe and I look forward to checking out this collaboration. Here's a taste of this recent recording:



Here's Jeff Coffin and drummer Jeff Sipe (with Jaco Pastorious' son playing bass!) from their presentation earlier this year at the JazzEd conference in New Orleans:



Nice t-shirt Jeff !

I love playing duets with other musicians of any instrument and I think that it not only forces one to think about different approaches to playing music (because often we have to take on different musical roles) but it also brings out other elements of one's playing as well that you might not otherwise realize.

Some of my favorite duet albums include:

Ed Blackwell and Don Cherry "El Corazon"
Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie "Paris 1989"
Max Roach and Cecil Taylor "Historic Concerts"
Max Roach and Anthony Braxton "Birth & Rebirth"
Max Roach and Archie Shepp "The Long March"
Duke Ellington and Ray Brown "This One's for Blanton"
Rashied Ali and Jaco Pastorious "Blackbird"
Matt Wilson and Lee Konitz "Gong with The Wind Suite"
Bill Stewart and Bill Carrothers "Duets"
Dave Douglas and Hans Bennink "Serpentine"
John Coltrane and Rashied Ali "Interstellar Space"
Jack DeJohnette and John Surman "Invisible Nature"
Jack DeJohnette and David Murray "In Our Time"
Ed Blackwell and Dewey Redman "Red & Black"
Steve Lacy and John Heward "Recessional (for Oliver Johnson)"



Lately I've been really digging the Billy Higgins & Charlies Lloyd ECM collaboration "Which Way is East" which was captured near the end of Higgins' life. You really get a sense of his spiritual journey when listening to them play. Some deep moments on that one. I've posted this particular clip of these two a few times now, but it's so good....here it is again!

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