Ran Blake / Dave Knife Fabris: Live Amsterdam 2006, First Visit

In 2006, pianist Ran Blake, in his seventh decade, is captured in concert at Amsterdam's Bimhaus with guitarist Dave Fabris. Their collaboration began first as mentor/mentee but had become more like partners after working together for over three decades. Together they can be heard on Blake's releases, two on hatOLOGY Something To Live For (1999) and Horace Is Blue: A Silver Noir (2000), and also on Vilnius Noir (NoBusiness, 2011), Indian Winter (Soul Note, 2005) and Ghost Tones (A-Side, 2015).

This performance has two parts. First, Blake performs solo, and then he is accompanied by Fabris, who Blake nicknamed "Knife" in his first year at the New England Conservatory of Music.

With any Ran Blake performance, even as far back as his 1965 Plays Solo Piano (ESP-Disk), we hear an artist steeped in jazz, classical, and popular music. All forms merge into one expression. The Bimhaus performance is no exception. He draws from, among others, Greek film composer Mikis Theodorakis, Thelonious Monk, Horace Silver, and Dmitri Shostakovich, all without breaking character. The character being Blake himself.

As we hear with "Drop Me Off in Harlem/Night and Day," his mood ranges from fractured and bouncy to melancholy as he tackles Duke Ellington and Cole Porter, or he can work out a full deconstruction as he does on Monk's "Hornin' In." He can play a blues with intimacy on "All That Is Tied" or drop a carpet bomb of chords with "Paris." Blake delivers an aching beautiful solo rendition of "Bye Bye Blackbird" by expanding its sentimental core.

Fabris joins for the final eight tracks. The guitarist propels Blake with his reggae pulse on "Machito/Jammin'" and weaves a bit of funk into Horace Silver's "Soulville." Fabris, like Blake, has a thing for film scores. They tackle Ray Webb's "Spiral Staircase," the title track from the 1946 psychological thriller of the same name, and Bernard Herrmann's "North By Northwest" from Alford Hitchcock's classic film. From the edge of your seat to Ornette Coleman's "Sadness/Space Church," the pair covers the gamut of musical expression.