The Japanese word Katarahi represents “a heart-to-heart conversation between intimate friends,” and that’s exactly what we get on the album of the same title. Veteran pianists Myra Melford (NYC) and Satoko Fujii (Tokyo) share a thirty-year friendship, first commemorated by 2007’s Under the Water. Nearly twenty years later, the two have a lot to talk about at this performance at Jazzfestival Leibnitz in Austria. With their instruments snuggled up like puzzle pieces, the pair trade songs but collaborate on each one, with neither being showcased above the other. That means that the two musicians’ styles blend into one another, with the conversation becoming ever more intimate as the performance unfolds. Sometimes heated (check out the beginning of “Kaiwa,” in which the duo channels Cecil Taylor), sometimes playful (listen to the jokes flying back and forth at the midpoint of the epic closer “From Sometime”), and sometimes affectionate (the delighted “Chalk”), the music celebrates a truly deep rapport between two master players. Two keyboards, four hands, twenty fingers – and a joy to witness.
