Mark Kleinhaut and John Stowell

Cross Country Lines

Invisible Music

Two of the most highly esteemed guitarists playing jazz today offer music that is wholly captivating and adventurous. Improvising on a collection of standards, the music is delicate and quiet, late night or summer afternoon music. The principals work off of each other brilliantly, giving the songs new interpretations. Their version of Irving Berlin’s How Deep Is the Ocean sees the melody played over a backing that accentuates. Their take on John Coltrane’s Equinox, a complex song, shines a light on their mastery of their instruments. Both player’s play single notes as if chasing each other or engaged in a profound conversation. Not so much lead and rhythm as two leads, each is assigned separate channels. They also tackle Miles Davis’s Solar and Thelonious Monk’s Well You Needn’t with similar aplomb. Kleinhaut speaks of the ghost of guitar legend Charlie Byrd hovering over the sessions and it is apparent that he left his mark on both players. While the music is delightful, it is also complicated. Their version of Solar is an exercise in voicing, but also deceptively simple. The Monk tune is as complex a tune as one could imagine a guitar tackling. Their version is jaw-dropping. Carlos Jobim is represented by three songs: Triste, Once I Loved and the delightful Insensatez. These might be the true test of their chops and they shine through them all. Ditto their versions of Polka Dots and Moon Beams, Body and Soul, Someday My Prince Will Come, Victor Young’s Stella By Starlight and the Arthur Schwartz-penned Alone Together.Rarely have two guitarists gotten together to make such tantalizing and mesmerizing music.