ONE TO ONE
Elton Dean alto sax, saxello; Howard Riley piano.
Tracks 1-6 recorded at London Jazz Festival 20 May 1993,
tracks 7&8 recorded at the Holywell Music Room Oxford, 29 Jan 1999.
SLAMCD 234
5 028386 023425
TRACKS:
1 Turn out the stars 10m 54s
2 Comprehension 4 17
3 Darn that dream 9 12
4 Shared confidences 4 47
5 Crescent 11 39
6 Duopoly 3 00
7 One to one 9 49
8 Spires 12 11
The Wire, February 2000
Concert recordings from the 1993 London Jazz Festival and a performance in Oxford this year confirm the stature of this inspired duo. The astringent tone of Dean's saxello and pianist Riley's rugged chording transform the character of Bill Evans's 'Turn Out The Stars' and the standard 'Darn That Dream'. For Coltrane's 'Crescent', Dean switches to alto. Five totally improvised duets display comparable wealth of experience, skill and musical intelligence.
Jazz Journal, December 2000
The Riley/Dean team is one that works well and this excellent album comprises performances recorded six years apart. The first six titles were made at the 1993 Lon Jazz Festival while the final two were recorded in 1999 at the Holywell Music Room in Oxford.
In London, Turn Out, Darn That Dream and Crescent are more orthodox duo efforts with (supported) solo space available. Crescent is outstanding but all of the unpredictable routes taken can be comfortably charted by the alert ear. In contrast, titles such as Comprehension, Shared Confidence and Duopoly take the form of total improvisational interactions. These tax the participants to the full but the response by both musicians is exemplary. The same is true of the Oxford items and One to One comes over as one of those special moments when two men seem to hit a creative peak for the full length of a shared experience. Barry McRae
Rubberneck, April 2000
Britons, Howard Riley and Elton Dean are, let's face it, national treasures. They've worked together in innumerable contexts over the years, but One To One finds them, as the title implies, in a simple duo. Riley is one of the most strident and orchestral post bop pianists around. He has, since the late 60s, delved deep into the aesthetic maelstrom of freeplay. Dean had, by the time he rose to public prominence in the jazz-rock outfit Soft Machine, developed a distinctive voice on alto sax and saxello. Both players have worked consistently at the creative edge of jazz. The material here comes from two concerts: the 1993 London Jazz Festival and the Holywell Music Room, Oxford, in 1999. I'm not sure if the world really needs another version of 'Darn That Dream', though the genial understatement of Coltrane's 'Crescent' made me smile. But the meat of these concerts is free improvisation. Two master musicians at play.