Hyman, Kellaway Celebrate Art of Piano Improv

The Jazz Bakery’s continuing series of two-piano, live recording sessions has come up with a winner this week. Pianists Dick Hyman and Roger Kellaway may not seem, on the face of it, to have particularly compatible styles. Hyman, 72, is an eclectic stylist with particularly strong skills in swing and stride music. Kellaway, 60, comes straight out of the postwar bop tradition.

Both, however, are talented and versatile composer-arrangers. And their capacity to think structurally in an atmosphere of spontaneous improvising was the key to the compatibility that was present Monday in the opening set of their three nights of recording. Although there were numerous points--in some of the songs’ introductions, in sudden shifts of rhythm, in the frequent, unexpected use of dissonant harmonies--that seemed to be the product of carefully considered, composed passages, virtually everything was completely unplanned.

It obviously helped that Hyman and Kellaway had worked together frequently in the past, most expansively during long runs in the ‘60s at the now-defunct Michael’s Pub in New York City. But it was equally important that each player was as careful a listener and an accompanist as he was a soloist and an individualist.

The program ranged across a wide horizon of styles: standards (“Autumn Leaves” and “Sugar”), jazz tunes (“Stompin’ at the Savoy” and “All Blues”) and a Kellaway original, a dreamy line in 7/4 titled “Soaring.” Each emerged in remarkably coherent fashion, with inner adjustments taking place almost instantaneously. For example, when “Autumn Leaves,” performed early in the set, seemed to be drifting into a too-busy plethora of notes, Hyman and Kellaway quickly shifted focus to allow more dramatic spacing.

But more commonly the pieces simply flowed naturally, vivid combinations of sounds and silences interspersed with brisk jazz soloing from one or the other player. Melody statements, chording, walking bass lines surfaced, blended, then were replaced by other equally compelling sounds. It was, in short, a powerful example of the improvisational art, smartly executed by two of the jazz world’s most imaginative practitioners.

* Dick Hyman-Roger Kellaway in a live recording session at the Jazz Bakery at 8 and 9:30 tonight. 3233 Helms Ave., Culver City. (310) 271-9039. $20.