O.C. JAZZ REVIEW : First Stringers Van Eps, Rizzi on Same Team : Guitarists’ different styles--an almost orchestral approach and a more pointed attack--make for a host of surprising counterpoints and junctures.

Their styles are as different as a waltz and a jitterbug. But that’s what made the guitar duo of George Van Eps and Tony Rizzi so fascinating Thursday at El Matador.

The two Orange County residents have appeared together infrequently since the early ‘80s. Both have impeccable credentials: Rizzi as a onetime member of the Stan Kenton orchestra and of various studio bands; Van Eps as a true innovator on guitar during a career that stretches back about six decades. Both bring a lot of experience to the bandstand.

They also bring a lot of personality. The match between Van Eps’ full, almost orchestral approach and Rizzi’s more pointed attack made for a host of surprising counterpoints and junctures, and the evening turned on those moments when the varied techniques found common ground.

The two guitarists laid out their approaches on “Them There Eyes,” Van Eps setting a solid rhythmic pace with chordal play while inserting single-note references to the melody and occasional low-register tones in a touchstone bass line. The sheer amount of sound that Van Eps pulled from his seven-string instrument recalled the density of Stanley Jordan’s two-handed play (though Van Eps was doing this well before Jordan was born). It’s the kind of construction more common to keyboardists than guitarists.

Less tied to the rhythmic pulse, Rizzi tracked the familiar melody with sharp, singular notes, broken only occasionally by an accompaniment chord. He was more willing to stray from the straight-ahead push, bending notes on a steep pitch, compressing melody lines in a rush or stretching them out like taffy. Though he occasionally overstayed his welcome when delivering certain long lines, his playful, probing ways worked in contrast to Van Eps’ complex backdrop.

With alert support from bassist Luther Hughes and drummer Chuck Flores, the two guitarists put this mix-and-match approach to a host of standards including “There’ll Never Be Another You” and “On a Clear Day.” Van Eps suspended the rhythmic pulse on his short, unaccompanied introduction to “Body and Soul,” showing strong emotional, as well as technical ways. Rizzi filled Juan Tizol’s “Perdido” with descending, spiral-staircase lines and bluesy, bent notes, while Van Eps’ solo during the tune took a gradual dynamic turn that left the guitarists playing in whispers.

At one point during the evening, Van Eps told how a young George Gershwin, while working as an accompanist for his father, Fred Van Eps, used to bounce the future guitarist on his knee and give him penny candy. He then moved into the composer’s “Embraceable You,” opening solo with quotes from “Rhapsody in Blue” before the rest of the quartet jumped in.

Hughes, making one of his infrequent acoustic-bass appearances, provided firm foundation for Van Eps’ complex ways while bringing aggressive yet melodic ways to solos. Flores played to the beat, something that must be difficult to avoid with Van Eps’ insistent pulse, while adding enough understated crackle to keep the pieces lively.

There were times when the two guitarists found especially sweet chordal blendings, as they did during Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia on My Mind,” and they would exchange satisfied smiles across the bandstand. But the evening’s best moments came when their techniques seemed most at odds. Call it a serendipitous match of two varied styles.