Richard Fairhurst has been a Steinway international artist since 1998 and initially joined forces with the world-class English piano veteran John Taylor for the 2010 Steinway Festival. They committed to a recording together following another performance at JT's 70th birthday celebration concert in 2012. For the senior half of the couple, it's a first recording in the duet format. It's an intelligent, seriously considered project in which the pair has discovered a lot of common ground with which to develop their own personal visions, on tracks that include tributes to a pair of inspirational British jazz artists quite recently passed away: Kenny Wheeler and Pete Saberton. The latter is the less well-known, though certainly not with musicians for whom he's an inspirational educator and pianist-composer, and whose single-minded unpredictability is saluted by the duo on the most ‘out’ track, ‘Epitaph to Sabbo’ as well as a Steve Reich-like original version of his ‘3 P's Piece’. Meanwhile Wheeler's tango-like ‘Sly Eyes’ is a demonstration of two pianos enhancing both the rhythmic and melodic content of a piece, while avoiding the kind of impenetrably dense textures often heard in this format. The suite dedicated to Bill Evans, their admiration for the composer leading to the long-term basis of their collaboration, opens with Taylor's own ‘Evans Above’ and includes tenderly elegant versions of ‘Very Early’ and ‘Turn Out the Stars’. The piano duet at worse can often feel like battling egos trying to catch each other out while patting each other on the back. In these cases the musicians seem to be having a better time playing together than we are listening to it. Not so with Taylor and Fairhurst. They avoid these kind of pitfalls, being more interested in creating the feeling of space than clutter, and taking on both solo and supportive roles that encourage the spirit of give and take.

Jazzwise spoke to Richard Fairhurst about the album

On Duets there are tributes to both Pete Saberton and Kenny Wheeler. In what ways have they had an impact on your playing and composing?

Both Pete and Kenny were friends and inspirations to both myself and John, they had a unique and personal approach to playing and composing. Pete was a fantastic pianist and his composing always took twists and turns that were unexpected, both harmonically and rhythmically speaking. Kenny's music too has such individuality, beautiful melodies and harmonies, and his legacy and impact on European jazz as a whole is huge. Some of the first British jazz I heard were records of his such as Gnu High, which is very special and of course his many collaborations with John like Flutter By, Butterfly – one of the first times I heard John play, so that's also very special to me.

What kind of challenges do you enjoy as a performer in a piano duet that might not occur in other formats?

There are many challenges, probably the most obvious one is creating space as there is always the potential to have a lot of notes flying about which is not necessarily a good thing. I think the main aim for us was to achieve a blend within the overall sound of the music that had the unity of one instrument being heard – two pianos as one. We rehearsed at Steinway Hall a lot and spent time working on the many possibilities that exist within the piano duet setting, experimenting with sounds, textures, space, rhythmic ideas and ways of interacting with each other intuitively. Sometimes we play together and sometimes we play solo within any given arrangement.

John has also had a huge impact, not on only yourself but many other contemporary jazz pianists all over Europe.

If you look at the great music he has made and the people he has worked with from Jan Garbarek, Kenny Wheeler, John Surman, Marc Johnson, Joey Baron, Dave Holland, Azimuth, the list goes on, incredible trio records on ECM like Rosslyn. All the pianists and musicians I know, from different generations are aware of and appreciate John's contribution to jazz in the UK and in Europe and that is the right place to be as a musician.