Virtuosity and control from all, ingeniously intuitive interplay, dynamics and surprise, and an ingratiating manner with the audience that seemed to bring even the most conservative skeptics around me under their spell.

A beautiful example of how successful even today’s furthest jazz explorations can still be when in truly gifted hands.

It’s not always that we have the opportunity to appear with those we’ve long admired and respected, and particularly another pianist. I’m fortunate to have performed duo piano in the past with Bill Mays, Pete Malinverni and Bill Cunliffe. This meeting with Kenny Werner,  one of the lights  of contemporary jazz piano, will be another memorable event for me.

I still return regularly to my copy of the magic “Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall” CD  from 1957, released finally on Blue Note in 2007. I’m convinced it’s the definitive distillation on record of  Monk’s artistic genius and pianism, as well as a crucial documenting of John Coltrane’s ongoing development at that time.

The uncanny intuitiveness between these two giants is something to behold, with no little help from Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass and Shadow Wilson, drums. A classic moment in our music by anyone’s standards.