Eric Vloiemans & Will Holshouser: Back On The Road Again

Here is an instrumental duo straight out of Alice's wonderland: trumpet and accordion. You heard right. Back on the Road Again features only two artists: Dutch trumpeter Eric Vloiemans and American accordionist Will Holshouser. The two formed a bond in 2018 and have been performing together for the most part ever since. Back on the Road Again is their third recording as a duo.

It is an extraordinary alliance by any measure, and if Vloiemans and Holshouser were not so preposterously good at what they do, there is no way it could ever work. But work it does, at least as well as such a slender partnership could. There are a dozen songs on the bare-bones album (no liner notes), every one written and arranged by Vloiemans or Holshouser save for the finale, Naomi Neville's Latin-shaped "Ruler of My Heart." The album's title is slightly misleading, as the twosome is not "on the road" but presumably in a recording studio, albeit recorded "live."

The demand to implant variety into every number lands for the most part on Holshouser's shoulders, as the accordion can produce a number of seemingly disparate sounds, whereas the trumpet sounds basically like a trumpet—unless muted, which is never the case here. So Vloiemans governs the melodic sphere while Holshouser provides the counterpoint, serving as navigator and rhythm section. This is pivotal throughout, and especially so on such up-tempo numbers as "Julien," "The Open Road," "Rugstreepad Op Varijersvoeten," "Danse pour les Enfants" and "Punkinhead."

As to solos, they are respectable, but improvisation may not be what the duo's audiences come to hear. What they do hear are virtuoso musicians who can make an unlikely duo sound fresh and exciting for an hour or more. That is the premise on which Back on the Road Again rests, and Vloiemans and Holshouser make sure it is not without merit.