DUELLING PIANISTS
Act back for Black History Month
It sure beats pistols, but regardless, duelling pianos can also bring out a level of aggression among its participants.
Even if the duelling pianists are a father/son tandem.
Eddie Bullen and his son Quincy have been facing off in piano duels around this continent for the last seven years.
Their tickling of the ivories may take on a competitive tone as they push each other on stage, but the result is a captivating recital of their interpretations of jazz, classical and contemporary standards.
The Toronto-based Bullens, who enthralled Montrealers last year, are coming back to town to partake once again in Black History Month festivities with their Dueling Pianos concert, Feb. 3 at the Oscar Peterson Concert Hall.
Eddie, 58, was first smitten with the concept when he heard jazz giants Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock engage in a piano duel on disc when he was a teen back in the mid-1970s.
“I just fell in love with that record until the grooves were almost coming out the other side,” Eddie recalls. “I dreamed that one day I would do the same with another piano player. And, lo and behold, after so many years of studying, it turned out that my son Quincy was able to answer the call and try to take his father on.”
Make no mistake, there is definitely competition between the two.
“A friendly competition,” says Quincy, 25. “It’s always great to be able to see eye to eye with your father and to be able to play with him. But as much as we’re trying to compete with each other, there’s also an element of father/ son togetherness, in that we have to perform the music together.
“What makes this such an interesting experience is that we are able to come together and also to split apart. We play differently and have different inspirations.”
Given their age difference, their musical influences are different. Quincy was schooled more on the classics as well as contemporary music, while Eddie has a penchant for jazz and blues.
“So given our differences in taste, what we do on stage is to do songs and music that were really the backdrops to our lives,” Eddie says. “We try to relate the musical story of our lives and about how I introduced Quincy to different artists. Like Oscar Peterson, who was a major influence of mine and who became a major influence of Quincy’s. So we do a couple of pieces to honour the work that Oscar had done.”
Eddie has also turned Quincy on to one of the great jazz trailblazers, Charlie Parker, as well as to the reggae strains of Toots and the Maytals.
“We’ve also started doing a version of the Weather Report song Birdland — which is dedicated to Charlie Parker, because his nickname was Yardbird,” Eddie says. “That’s how we pick our songs, and there is dialogue on stage in between on how we’ve come up with the music we do.”
Which is not to suggest that everything is pitch-perfect on stage. There are gaffes.
“But that’s where we are able to pick each other up,” Quincy notes. “So, a lot of the time, we do what we do best and that it is to improvise. Which is why most of the performances we do together are never really the same.”
The key component to their act, apart from their piano playing, is a narrative about how a father and son came together as an act. Which wasn’t the smoothest transition.
“There was a time when my father really wanted to instil in me an appreciation for jazz,” Quincy points out. “But I was in high school and a little bored with that. I was more focused on trying to impress the ladies back then. And let’s just say that jazz or classical didn’t really impact the ladies then.
“So now on stage, we explain that and play a little song that would fit accordingly into that kind of situation. And you can see the eyes of all the ladies in the room light up with a song where pop music and R&B and jazz and classical music all collide.”
“Clever move on the part of Quincy,” Eddie interjects. “This turned out to be a porthole for him, with a lot of young ladies
knocking on our door and asking if Quincy was home.”
“There’s no mystery to that,” Quincy shoots back.
“I just let my fingers on the piano do the talking.”
But nor are Eddie and Quincy constantly glued together musically.
“We respectively and respectfully also have our own solo worlds. I also dabble in other genres and in other instruments like drums, bass and guitar,” says Quincy, who backed up singer Melba Moore on guitar in a Barbados concert last week while his dad complemented on piano.
“Because my father is always gigging somewhere and I’m often gigging somewhere else, it’s really nice when we can come together.”
And is there ever any disharmony between father and son on stage? “Not on stage,” Quincy says. “But sometimes he likes to push me around. So I have to push back.”
Reasons Eddie: “I really don’t see that it was such a big deal for me to wake Quincy up at 5 every morning to practise the piano.” “No, not at all,” Quincy cracks. “To practise two hours a day — for 15 years!”