David Lyttle & Phil Robson: IN2

The title of drummer David Lyttle and guitarist Phil Robson's debut duo album is as direct and uncluttered as the music contained herein. Equally divided between time-honored standards and stylistically sympathetic originals—three by the Lyttle and one by Robson—the duo's straight-ahead, tradition-grounded language is perhaps a departure from their more genre-fluid work, particularly Lyttle's hip-hop filtered, MOBO-nominated Faces (Lyte Records, 2015), and Robson's wildly eclectic EP Portrait in Extremes (Lyte Records, 2022), which careened entertainingly from ambient soundscapes and straight-ahead elegance to, well, anywhere from Wayne Krantz-esque excursions to Black Sabbath-inspired doom-rock.

Both musicians, however, are well versed in modern jazz. In a career divided chiefly between London and New York, Robson has worked with Billy Hart, James Genus, Phil Woods, Kenny Wheeler and Dave Liebman, amongst many other illustrious names. Lyttle announced his arrival in the small groups of renowned Irish guitarist Louis Stewart, later going on to play with Greg Osby, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Joe Lovano and former Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers alumnus, Jean Toussaint. Some collective history there, to be sure. And could it be that Lyttle and Robson are breaking new ground with the very first, standards-inspired, guitar-meets-drums duo album in jazz history?

Robson plies a seductive, less-is-more attack on Jimmy Van Heusen/Eddie Delange's "Darn That Dream" and Lyttle's own finely wrought ballads, "Lullaby for strange Times" and the beautiful, melancholy-tinged "Septembertime." Even in more animated mode, as on the imaginative arrangement of Johnny Mercer/Harold Arlen's "Out Of This World," where Robson's Yamaha AE1200 bounces from harmonically bright chordal progressions to short, fleet runs à la Jim Hall, his economy enables a neat balance between melody and rhythmic pulse. With Lyttle also constantly juggling time and improvisation, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that this is but a duo.

If, in the past, Lyttle was in thrall to Art Blakey, then recent years have seen a broadening of his palette. There is as much a suggestion of Bill Stewart or Ari Hoenig in his playing here. The latter's influence is most keenly felt in Lyttle's melodic stickwork on "I Should Care" and in his hand-drumming on the gently loping "Camels," a delightful original of subtly exotic charms. Brushes, however, are Lyttle's wands of choice for the most part, whipping up a storm or drawing the most delicate of spray- like textures from both skin and metal. And he swings hard when the music dictates, as on Robson's "Astral," which weds finesse and heat, and on the aforementioned standard.

The blend of strong originals and handsomely rendered standards makes for winning material, but it is the intuitive, searching interplay between two perfectly attuned musicians that makes IN2, a quietly groundbreaking album, so rewarding. Drums and guitar? It could be the start of a whole new trend in jazz.