Aldo Romano is a drummer, but this album is a celebration of the lyrical power of the piano, with its ‘black and white fangs’. Romano is there providing percussive support – as well as vocals on the closing track – but very much to the fore here is Dino Rubino, a pianist without bombast who, for Romano, ranks alongside the likes of Jarrett and Petrucciani. The music they perform together, with Michel Benita assisting with sprung rhythms on double-bass, consists of a series of revisitings of tracks composed by the drummer-leader, with the exception of final track ‘Il Voyage En Solitaire’ (‘He Travels Alone’), sung movingly by Romano and suggestive of the overall mood of nostalgic balladry. As Romano says, the title Mélodies En Noir & Blanc – which translates, of course, as Melodies in Black and White – evokes the world of 1950s detective stories, as well as the keys of a piano: ‘L.A. 58’ and ‘Webb’ are the most propulsive cuts here, while the likes of ‘Inner Smile’ take intense pleasure in a more backward-looking kind of introspection.