AMG Review of Duology

François Couture
All Music Guide

The Howard Riley/Lol Coxhill duo has been sporadically active since the mid-'70s, but this is the first full-length recording documenting their music. Is the title, Duology, referencing Howard Riley's 1982 LP Duality? It may be so, since both albums are made of two distinct halves. In Duality's case, the contrast resides in both the length and the jazz inflections of the pieces. If you don't pay attention to the liner notes, you might not notice the duality in Duology, but the first half of the CD consists of a private session recorded at ~the Holywell Room on March 13, 2002, while the second half presents the public concert given at the same location that evening. Riley's playing changes with the setting. In private, he focuses more on sonorities and softer tones, playing mind games with Coxhill's soprano sax. During the public performance he returns to his usual self, which stands somewhere between a free jazz pianist and a romantic, somewhere between Thelonious Monk and Franz Liszt. When he hammers at the lowest keys, it is not to play boogie-woogie, but to evoke the rumbles of an emotional tempest. And Coxhill gives him room to stretch, often sticking to embroidered lines or gently tugging the pianist towards a different path. He even steps down graciously on a couple occasions (at the beginning of "Hearing Is Believing," and "Broom Dust"). During the private set he is wittier, playful and soulful (as in the beautiful "Blankets," the highlight of the disc). This album is not a key entry in either musician's discography, but it has its moments.