Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas, Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, review What a joy it was, to see two of jazz's biggest personalities together and up close on Ronnie's stage. The only doubt was: would there be room, metaphorically speaking, for the two of them? They're such different animals: saxophonist Joe Lovano, as expansive and generous in tone and line as he is in girth, his playing firmly rooted in a post-bop idiom: trumpeter Dave Douglas, short, wiry, rooted nowhere in particular, with a restless and probing tone and temperament. In fact these two have been playing together for some years, and know just how to steer around each other, and when to come together in a dance, or a scrum. The first number started off with an air of deliberate casualness, as if each player were marking out a space and simultaneously searching for the other, as if in a darkened room. Suddenly we were hurled into a fast bop tempo; but no, this was a false alarm, we weren't there yet. Finally the players came together in a medium swing, and we were off. It was entertaining, to see how well two opposites could come together as one. And it turned out that compositionally these two were also not so far apart, both having a fondness for short, teasingly asymmetrical phrases that spurred the collective interplay rather than hooking firmly into the memory. It's often said this shows their shared debt to Wayne Shorter, but whereas Shorter tends to whip up a fury of intensity - intoxicating and oppressive at once - these two never strained for the heights. They didn't need to, as the nimbleness of the collective interplay made everything fly. Although the themes of the compositions weren't so striking, the forms certainly were. Every piece followed a different trajectory, marked out by new combinations of the five players emerging and then vanishing back into the flux. And the familiar jazz trick of allowing a tempo to flip into double-speed and back was made to sound fresh and new. Much of the credit for this energising fleetness must go to the rhythm section. Pianist Lawrence Field could have been more assertive, though his flickering octave-doubled lines were a delight. Bassist Linda Oh had the elegant and needle-sharp focus of a fencer. As for the gleeful and joyous drummer Joey Baron, his neat way of conjuring an entire break out of a few cymbal strokes almost stole the show.