Dynamic duo

Hancock and Shorter's rapturous 1+1

by Jim Macnie

Putting creative reciprocity to the test is one reason musicians participate in duets, and from Jim Hall and Bill Evans' mutual accord to the forthright conversations held between Mal Waldron and Steve Lacy, it's been suggested that jazz kinship never feels stronger than when teamwork also manages to bolster individuality.

Musical confidants who deeply understand each other's playing, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter have intermittently entwined their skills for more than three decades. Their rapport, at times, has been rapturous. But recently each of these jazz icons has suffered critical jabs: Herbie for the alleged clunkiness of his 1996 Grammy winner, The New Standard, Wayne for the perceived garishness of his last few discs. In an era when many young instrumentalists come up referencing the pair's irrefutably profound mid-'60s sounds, the pianist and saxophonist are unable to camouflage their musical foibles. They may be viewed as deities, but they are most certainly human.

1+1 is a fully acoustic disc whose resonant touchstones are intricacy and intimacy and, with momentary exceptions, it casts our two heroes in a shimmering light. "A challenging landmark in the careers of two artists who have specialized in confounding expectations," says Gary Giddins in the September issue of FI. This music's eloquence may have recent doubters wanting to once again touch the hem of their garments.

The idea to record a disc and spend the summer touring the globe in a piano/sax duet came when Shorter and Hancock played Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center last year at the Thelonious Monk Institute's annual awards bash. The pair put their stamp on Michael Borstlap's "Memory of Enchantment," which had won the Institute's top composition honors. Amid Stevie Wonder blasting through "Sir Duke" and a tacky Latin jazz medley, the intellectual communion of Hancock's piano and Shorter's horn seemed enlightened if not transfixing. The depth of their exchange was instantly identifiable. As they left the stage, Pat Metheny button-holed them, stating in no uncertain terms that a duet record record was a must. "I'll be the first in line to buy it," he reportedly urged.

Hancock and Shorter must have also felt some vigorous spirits between themselves. In a recital that stresses the power of reflection, the interaction on 1+1 is quick-witted and buoyant. Anyone who recalls Shorter's quixotic pas de deux with Joe Zawinul on Weather Report's "Blackthorn Rose," knows just how mischievous and resourceful his tandem playing can be. In cahoots with Hancock, his work is similarly creative. Here the saxophonist's phrasing is virtually devoid of standard bop lingo, yet forceful enough to turn his idiosyncratic curlicues into authoritative statements.

Gripers, including me, often complain that Shorter doesn't use his tenor sax enough. We yearn for a reprise of the brutish poetry heard on nuggets like "Etcetera." But the textural breadth and italicized pliability found on 1+1 will likely change a few minds regarding the eloquence of Wayne's soprano, which is used exclusively on the disc. It can be disarmingly emphatic, as on the tail end of his own "Aung San Suu Kyi," or unabashedly vulnerable, as his trills in the middle of "Visitor From Somewhere" suggest.

Though Hancock's playing has sometimes been marred by a mechanical feel, here he compliments his partner, yielding to a playful sense of impulse. The result is exceptional dynamic variety. Time and again, the pianist is agile enough to show us the logic that links hue and cry to a parched desert of silence. Along the way, he demonstrates how to turn discrete non sequiturs into bosom buddies. This kind of thoughtful capriciousness casts 1+1 as a cousin of free jazz (check the delirious midsection of "Diana"), fixated on the moment, and begetting devilish contours.

Hancock recently told JazzTimes, "We figured, `Okay, we know the things that we can't do because we don't have a bass player or a drummer. But what about the things we can do because we don't have those instruments?' It dawned on me that we're not restricted with time. We don't have to keep any tempo if we don't want to, or we can have varying tempos. The tempos can change from section to section or phrase to phrase."

Such detailed interplay is intriguing, but it provides a few too many opportunities for the pair to stop and smell the roses. The absence of a drummer begets the need to stress some sort of thrust. But Hancock and Shorter delight in the swirl, where rhythm is less a measurable quantity than an imagined emotion. It's a tactic that makes parts of 1+1 genteel enough to border on benign, conjuring recollections of the feathery affiliations between Chick Corea and Gary Burton. Rich melodies like Shorter's "Meridianne -- A Wood Sylph" are enticing, as is that of "Manhattan Lorelei." But the nuanced meditations the pair milk from such themes are somewhat degraded by their wayward drifting. Can a rapture be too enticing?

The plus side is that this pastoral approach generates a feeling of fantasia, which turns out to be the music's strongest point. Shorter, a science fiction devotee, needs little help in tripping out. Hancock also has his fanciful side. An expert lyricist, he's bent on splashing his lines into seductive eddies of sound. In a way, these reveries unite to form a sensuous escape route from the orthodoxy of mainstream swing.

Because of its lack of blues motifs and facade of decorum, 1+1 has been heard as chamber jazz. But I defy anyone to disavow the expressionism found in the architecture of these dreamscapes. Though they occasionally dawdle in the flora and fauna, Hancock and Shorter manage to turn a garden of glowing esoterica into a bastion for inspired quirks.

Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter will perform at the JVCJazz Festival on Sunday. See "Concerts" in Listings for complete details.