Question and Answer

not necessarily a "touring" question, but ... i think duets are interesting in general and i have a couple of recordings of duets with drummers that i like (bennink w/ dave douglas and w/ myra melford). the guitar seems to be a particularly good "sparring" instrument in this context (bailey w/ bennink/bendian/ibarra). given your own strong feelings about drummers, would you consider doing a duet with a drummer? if so, which drummers come to mind?

i used to really love playing duets with just drums - in fact, that is how danny gottlieb and i first started playing together and we used to do occasional concerts just as a duo. also, bob moses and i used to play just the two of us. to me, drummers are the most important part of any band, and i have been lucky to be around some of the best drummers in the world for all of these years, including the great tommy ruskin in kansas city who was an incredible influence on me (we used to play duo too). at this point, as is pretty obvious with most of the stuff i have done - as time as gone by, things have gotten denser and denser - but maybe the time is coming to try a guitar duo with drums again. one guy that comes to mind that i have always wanted to play with is gunter "baby" sommer who lives in what used to be east germany. he is one of my favorite musicians. he and peter kowald make up to me what is one of the best rhythm sections of the last half of this century - i have often thought about doing a trio record with them.