Chick Corea & Béla Fleck - Two (2xCD)

Chick Corea & Béla Fleck, two master songwriters, musicians, and band leaders meet once again in a historic duet of piano and banjo. The Grammy-winning duet, combine Corea and Fleck s classic tunes with the music from their Grammy-winning album The Enchantment! With a mix of jazz and pop standards, crossing a myriad of genres, from jazz, bluegrass, rock, flamenco and gospel, this album captures the casual, intimate playing by both legends from different musical worlds. Fans of legendary jazz pianist Chick Corea and bebop/bluegrass banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck are well aware of the pair's previous collaborations (Corea guests on two Flecktones albums, and Fleck appears on Corea's Rendezvous in New York DVD), but on their full-length release in 2007, The Enchantment, the two went into the project with an intense seriousness of purpose.

On Two, they continue to push each other in a live setting, adapting their instruments to genres (bluegrass, country, Latin, ragtime, classical, blues, and world) normally outside their idioms, Corea playing 'grassy banjo patterns on the piano on Fleck's mournful "Mountain" and Fleck stretching on Corea's suite-like "Joban Dna Nopia." With few exceptions, the compositions are only frameworks for vast improvisation, which might be expected. But instead of setting each other up for extended solos, Corea and Fleck join together with breathtaking precision and verve, weaving and intertwining through remarkable contrapuntal excursions, only to break and meet up again in perfect sync.