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Robert Mitchell & Omar Puente

Bridges

F-IRE CD16

Passionate, exuberant, fiercely interactive duo music from two like-minded souls is contained in the eight tracks that make up Bridges, recorded in London in April 2005.

Cuban electric violinist Omar Puente is capable of producing both poised, elegant melodies and vigorously affecting solos from his bowed instrument, interspersed with judiciously positioned plucked passages that impart a welcome textural variety to the duo sound; Robert Mitchell (as anyone who's heard his astonishing trio performances will know) is an extraordinarily dexterous, quicksilver-fast pianist, his playing by turns dramatically percussive and delicately tender, the whole delivered with a ready rhythmic wit perfectly suited to the varied fare that makes up this fascinating album.

The pieces are all by Mitchell or Puente, except for a Chucho Valdez mambo and a Cuban staple, 'Almendra', a graceful yet irresistibly jaunty tune satisfyingly explored by the duo, and highlights include a beautiful multi-faceted musical portrait of the world's smallest bird ('Reflection of a Bee-Hummingbird') and the powerful Puente closer, 'Swings and Roundabouts' .

Whatever they're playing, though, Mitchell and Puente demonstrate deep, natural-sounding musical empathy, and Bridges provides an object lesson in the tricky art of uncontrivedly combining grace and fire.