Louis Mazetier & Rossano Sportiello video

Here's a joyful and technically amazing performance by two of the greatest stride pianists nowadays, Louis Mazetier from France and Rossano Sportiello from Italy, recorded on December 16, 2007 at the Alte Kirche in Boswil (Switzerland) as part of the Swing Piano Summit II.

Piano duets are not an easy game to play, and much less in the sonically overpopulated world of stride piano, but Louis and Rossano do succeed in their mission and, in fact, they win by a large amount of goals. One of the multiple pleasures of this video is having the chance to watch Mazetier's left hand striding over more than two octaves in some passages.

Joe Turner on French TV (60s)

Stride pianist Joe Turner first visited Europe accompanying singer Adelaide Hall (1935-1936), and he stayed in the Continent until the beginning of World War II. During this period, he cut some records in Paris (among them one cannot forget his "specialty" arrangement of "Liza" for the French Ultraphone label, coupled with "Cheek To Cheek"), Bern or Prague. Reportedly, a private recording of Coleman Hawkins (on tenor sax, piano and vocals!) and Joe Turner does exist (Zurich, April 1936).

When Turner returned home, he joined Sy Oliver's service band at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, then playing as a soloist in New York (1939-1943) or as part of Rex Stewart's orchestra.

By 1948, he came back to Europe for good, variously headquartered in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, London and Paris, where he was featured regularly from 1962 on at "La Calvados", a bar off the Champs Elysées. Here's where, according to Siegfried H. Mohr, on March 3, 1990, Ralph Sutton, François Rilhac and Louis Mazetier joined him in a truly memorable kind of Stride Piano Summit.

Here you have a few Dailymotion Joe Turner gems, from a rare French TV program from the Sixties, Jazz Session. The other featured musician on this program was Champion Jack Dupree.

Joe Turner - Keep Off The Grass (James P. Johnson)

Joe Turner - Cloud Fifteen (Joe Turner) / Carolina Shout Ç(James P. Johnson

Joe Turner - St. Louis Blues (W.C. Handy)