Chad Fowler / Eri Yamamoto: Polkadots & Moonbeams

Some of the finest duo recordings give the listener the sensation of eavesdropping on an intimate encounter. The recordings of Tony Bennett and Bill Evans come to mind, as does the music of Billie Holiday and Lester Young. Polkadots & Moonbeams, by pianist Eri Yamamoto and saxophonist Chad Fowler, creates that same feeling. Although recorded in a studio, the performance sounds as though it might have been captured for the musicians themselves, an unguarded conversation between two artists listening closely to one another.

An Arkansas native and head of Mahakala Music, Fowler has been attracting attention in the jazz community throughout this century, performing with Joel Futterman, Ivo Perelman, Matthew Shipp and the free improvisation collective Dopolarians. Japanese pianist Yamamoto has been an anchor of the New York jazz scene for three decades, performing solo, leading her piano trio and collaborating with bassist William Parker. The two have also performed and recorded together, including in Yamamoto's Sparks Quartet and Quadraphonic.

Of the album's eight tracks, all but Johnny Burke's "Polkadots & Moonbeams" and Fowler's "Ash" are improvised. "Ash," which opens the disc, was written following the death and cremation of Fowler's father. His alto saxophone carries a mournful lament, answered by Yamamoto's hymn-like piano. The result is equal parts folk song and blues, establishing the emotional vocabulary that runs throughout the album. That blues sensibility surfaces in the bellowing "Midnight Mourning Morning Mirth," the evangelical "He Always Knew He'd Be a Preacher" and the pastoral "The Things We'll Miss," where Fowler switches to flute. Yamamoto's playing is consistently tasteful and responsive, never merely accompanying but subtly shaping the music around Fowler's lines. On "When You Die You Become Sentient Energy," she again provides a kind of pastoral guidance, elevating both Fowler's flute and saxophone while allowing the improvised conversation to unfold naturally.

The pair briefly transform into acrobats, jugglers and pantomimes on "Russian Dragon," injecting a welcome bit of comic relief into the proceedings. Then they return to the album's title song, Burke's "Polkadots & Moonbeams," a standard associated with everyone from Frank Sinatra and Bill Evans to Cassandra Wilson. Rather than treating it as a familiar jazz vehicle, Yamamoto and Fowler slow the tempo until the song's country dance seems to become a closely held sway—less a dance for a roomful of people than an intimate embrace.

What makes Polkadots & Moonbeams successful is not simply its intimacy, but the degree to which Yamamoto and Fowler sustain a convincing musical dialogue without relying on the usual conventions of duo improvisation. There is little sense of competition or virtuoso display; instead, each musician listens, responds and leaves room for the other. The improvised pieces are strongest when that restraint allows small gestures to develop into something larger. The album ultimately demonstrates that a duo does not need to fill every space to hold the listener's attention. In this case, the spaces between the notes are as important as the notes themselves.