Martin Spitznagel & Sue Keller ragtime piano duet

I think its all done by esp. Looks like every time their eyes meet, they lock into some kind of data exchange.

Howard

There's some communication via a look - checking a transition, etc. - but the real trick is in learning to listen as you play. Sometimes you'll sit down beforehand and play through it, but most of the time you're going at it fresh. The most advanced at it are Barnhart/Holland, who can trade single measures at rocketship speeds, but that's b/c they've been doing it for 10 years. The best stuff is made by the performers who are good listeners, reacting and responding real-time to one another.

Years ago, in college, a fellow student and I sat at a piano in a dark auditorium and tried four-hand improv. It worked, but I don't know how we did it. For me, maybe it was the dark. For him, dark didn't matter, but perhaps his ability in improv was helped by being unable to sight-read. Blind pianists cannot sight-read much. There certainly wasn't any looking at each other!

Your 6/8 Entertainer (recorded at the WCRF last November) sure looks like Spitz as lead and Hodges as follow. Right?

When you play in the dark, you're forced to rely on your instinctual knowledge of the instrument. Some things are harder: very technical runs, that kind of thing, but listening to yourself becomes much easier because that's all you can do! I love playing at night.

Improvisation involves a certain amount of fearlessness, I think; a willingness to fail. I was leading the 6/8 Entertainer because I'd played it that way before and Frederick hadn't, but he's so good, it didn't matter much.