Dick Hyman and Randy Sandke.(Now and Again)(Sound Recording Review)

Dick Hyman and Randy Sandke. Now and Again. Arbors ARCD 19310, 2005.

When a trumpeter and pianist decide to record an album of jazz standards without a rhythm section, they are setting themselves a particularly interesting set of challenges--the most obvious of which is a rhythmic one: how to generate a compelling sense of groove, and how to maintain that groove while at the same time improvising with any real sense of adventure. Obviously, the foundation for a solution to that challenge has to be laid well before the recording project takes place; both pianist and trumpeter must come to the session with a rock-solid sense of time and a highly developed ability to anticipate and respond to each other's musical choices. (And, equally obviously, the heavier burden of sensitivity fails on the pianist, since the trumpeter doesn't share the responsibility of accompaniment during the ...