Album: Enrico Rava/Ran Blake, Duo en Noir (Between The Lines)

Only in jazz do you getalbums as bizarre andintermittently wonderfulas this. Apparentlyrecorded amid the clinkingglasses of a Frankfurtrailway station bar in 1999,the duo of Third StreampianistBlake and Italiantrumpet star Rava payhomage to film noir andHitchcock's centennialwith versions of themesfrom Laura,Vertigo andThe Spiral Staircase, aswell as "Nature Boy" anda few well-chosen standards.Seven tracks (out of10) in, Blake plays a killingsolo version of Al Green's"Let's Stay Together" andyou gasp.