Homely

Tom Cawley and Kit Downes (Homely)

     

This disc features a student and a teacher in conversation - not that you'd know it. Kit Downes, the young UK pianist who came to prominence with Empirical, is paired here with the marginally elder British piano statesman Tom Cawley. The biggest problem for any two virtuosic piano improvisers is how to avoid cancelling each other out; these two sidestep it by a combination of shrewdly chosen materials and lyrical musicality. In the early stages, the long, streaming improvisations over steadily pulsing basslines sound like pure Brad Mehldau, until a high, wild, audaciously unexpected counter-melody reveals the tension of two minds in dialogue. Some tracks suggest Chick Corea's dancing playfulness; some have a cinematic romanticism; some a bluesy simplicity, some a Monkish quirkiness. Both players can span everything from classical rhapsodising to salsa prancing, but the conversation between them is the abiding message. It's a more conventional and less angular piano dialogue than, say, that between Keith Tippett and Stan Tracey. But as a reappraisal of regular keyboard languages, it's musical, fresh, and very classy. **** John Fordham - Guardian