Many of us have heard great collaborations between pianists and guitarists.

• In the jazz world: we know of many long-standing duos, who recorded many songs together; here’s a tiny subset, ones I’m familiar with:
  • Benny Green, piano and Russell Malone, guitar (sadly, Russell passed away recently);
  • Bill Evans and Jim Hall (e.g., albums Undercurrent and Intermodulation)
  • I really like recordings of John Abercrombie, guitar, with Andy Laverne, piano;
  • Vince Guaraldi had long-standing collaborations with two guitarists in particular: Bola Sette as a duo collaboration; and with Eddie Duran, mostly in trio also with a bass player;
  • Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays!
  • Pat Metheny & Brad Mehldau!
  • Larry Goldings (organ) and Peter Bernstein (as part of a trio)
• In the classical world: I’m not familiar with many long-standing duos who stuck together in a similar way, to record many pieces together; I’m sure they exist! Please let me know if you know of ones you’re familiar with.
  • Claude Bolling wrote a hybrid piece which has been recorded by quite a few duos: Suite for Classical Guitar and Jazz Piano. (I played his Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano, with fine flute player Noreen Friedman.)
  • Julian Bream (guitar) recorded collaborations with harpsichordists, e.g., George Malcolm;
  • Gerald Moore, a hero to us collaborative pianists: although he was mostly a singers’ accompanist I’m surprised not to have found duet recordings of Gerald with guitar players, although he played with other string players, e.g., cellist Pablo Casals.
    • many consider that Geoffrey Parsons picked up the mantle as world’s best accompanist, especially after Gerald retired (Gerald died in 1987, Geoffrey died in 1995)
    • Roger Vignoles, happily still with us, is considered by many to be our best accompanist; I’m not finding recordings of him collaborating with guitarists
  • Arrangements of favorite classical works, created for keys and guitar, are recorded by many duos, e.g., Boccherini’s ‘Fandango’ movement from String Quintet in D major. 

During the days I was in music school, I enjoyed accompanying vocalists and instrumentalists (string and wind players). But in those years I didn’t have an opportunity to collaborate with guitarists.

Years later I had the chance to play with guitarists in the jazz idiom, in big bands. The first of those experiences was in the excellent Moorpark College band (two ensembles, led & taught by Robert Aguilar and Brendan McMullin). Many of the band members had been with the organization for years; most – all, really – were way further along the journey of learning and playing jazz, than I was. That was quite an experience, learning to (trying to!) keep up with those advanced musicians.

After that, I played in other big bands in Ventura County; most of those bands included guitarists.

My early experiences collaborating with these other ‘harmonic-instrument’ players were difficult in ways I hadn’t expected: e.g., how to add value while keeping out of the guitarist’s way?

One piano teacher recommended for me to confer with guitarist colleague to divvy up each song, to decide who’ll play when/where, to be sure we stay out of each other’s way!

But in actual experience, we didn’t have time or inclination to perform that exercise for every song we played (except maybe to decide who played a particular solo). One can get to that state of close collaboration by getting to know the specific guitarist, learning to listen to them (and from talking about things, of course!).

One of the finest guitarists in Ventura County I played alongside with was Hans Ottsen. He was also in the Ventura Jazz Orchestra for several months, and I played with him in other smaller groups. Many consider Hans (rightfully) to have been one of the best musicians in the county.

Sadly, Hans passed away a few years ago. He was well-loved by friends & kin, fans & listeners, musical colleagues: https://www.facebook.com/thegrapeventura/posts/we-are-deeply-saddened-to-share-that-the-grape-family-has-lost-one-of-its-own-ou/3285864171642075/

In recent years I got the opportunity to play in Patrick Martin’s quartet; to add to that good fortune, he brought in guitarist Michael Spota, to make the group a quintet.

After playing together a few weeks, Michael took me aside to say that we’d barely gone beyond the surface-level with the music we were working on, the two of us needed to practice at least a couple of additional times a week to sufficiently dig into these songs.

I’ve come to understand the wisdom of his recommendation! I think it takes a good amount of commitment and time for pianist and guitarist to collaborate well within an ensemble, to get into a song and understand it well. Since those days we’ve been regularly taking a song and spending time with it – sometimes several weeks – to get to understand (‘grok’) the essential nature of it. (I’ve mentioned in other blog posts that we use Jacktrip software to practice remotely.)

My piano teacher Camille Hayes talked about ‘sinking in’ to a piece of music: in a physical sense (sinking into the action of the piano); but also to dig in, to understand and communicate the essential idea that’s behind the piece of music.

Besides enjoying hearing their playing (and marveling at how they play their instrument), I’ve discovered how a pianist can learn a huge amount from guitar players!

I had the chance to benefit from tutelage of these guitarist gurus:

• Steven Herberman, faculty member with Jazzwire: https://www.jazzwire.net/staff/
• Peter Bernstein was featured in one of the Jazzwire workshops I was able to attend a couple of years ago, which was incredible.
• Jordan Klemons leads a great series of classes and discussions re: synergies between pianistic and guitaristic styles; he’s created an online community around those ideals: https://www.nycjazzguitarmasterclasses.com/pages/about-us
• Barry Greene teaches lessons online re: a huge array of topics & tunes: https://barrygreenevideolessons.vhx.tv/. He also loves using the technical tools available to us for music-making (one can learn cool ways to use Ableton Live from him!).

Here are another couple of excellent guitarists in Ventura County, I had the opportunity to learn from and enjoy hearing them play:

• Brad Strickland
  • Brad was also in the Ventura Jazz Orchestra when I was playing in the group. He’s an energetic musician and creator; his website (https://chasm-music.net/brad-strickland) describes some of his projects, including the ‘Art Farmers’ ensemble.
• Burt Gutierrez
  • Burt is founder & leader and arranger/composer for Phoenyx big band.
  • Phoenyx has become one of the longest-running big bands in Ventura county; some of the best players in the county have occupied chairs in Burt’s fine amalgamation.
  • I played in the Phoenyx band, and also played alongside Burt in smaller groups, e.g., Roger Bridges’ ensembles.

May all our pianist friends enjoy a collaboration with another ‘harmonic’ instrumentalist! For those on a similar path, I’d be curious to hear if your experiences align, and/or if you might have other thoughts to share about your musical journey.