Holly Hofmann has presented jazz concerts in San Diego for decades: at nightclubs, hotels, the San Diego Museum of Art. The venue may change, but the excellence of the artists she books remains constant.

These days Hofmann works out of the Birch North Park Theatre, a handsome space for her acts which allows patrons who can’t listen to jazz without a Scotch to fuel up at the West Coast Tavern adjacent to the theater (you can actually step into the theater from the tavern and vice versa, making drinks at intermission very easy). The acoustics at Birch are much better than the spacious auditorium at SDMA, the sound system an upgrade from what was available at SDMA, the seats more comfortable, and the atmosphere improved via the plush surroundings and tasteful stage lighting.

Mike Wofford.

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Pianist Mike Wofford is a San Diego institution. Don’t believe me about Wofford? Before the show, I overheard a gentleman in the lobby claim, “I first heard Mike Wofford in 1957, playing at the Lafayette Hotel.” Tell me that doesn’t rate “San Diego institution” status! As a student back in the ‘80s, my jazz loving buddies and I rapidly realized that Mike Wofford was top of the pyramid for local pianists, and soon came to love his technical chops, his improvisational skills, and his ear for original harmonizations.

Kenny Werner has played San Diego, but never shared a stage with MikeWofford. That’s not as uncommon as you might think for two jazz pianists. Piano duos are still something of a rarity in jazz. The role the pianist plays in a jazz group is fairly well-defined—left hand sounds the harmonies in a manner complementing what the bass is doing, right hand plays the melody or joins in with the left for thickening the chords. As a soloist there are all manner of devices that the left hand can do. When two pianists get together, they usually work out what those devices will be over the course of a number, to keep out of each other’s way.

Wednesday’s concert was complicated by travel delays; Werner and Wofford did not have time to work out those details. As Mike Wofford teased (or warned) the audience, their playing was going to be “pure jazz: absolutely spontaneous.”

Two-piano work requires a kind of musical telepathy. When playing loudly, it can be impossible to hear what the guy sitting seven feet away from you is doing. The percussive nature of the piano—a felt hammer striking a string—means that there is little tolerance for delays between instruments. You’d never notice most timing imperfections in two wind or bowed string instruments, but the sharply defined attack of every note on the piano leaves no tolerance for those infinitesimal delays.

That imprecise timing was evident between Werner and Wofford. That might be important for some listeners, but if you were there to hear melodic and harmonic invention, you might have called their ensemble work “flexible” and been pleased with the result.

There also were stylistic differences. Wofford, from an earlier generation than Werner, is by and large a bop pianist. Werner’s coming of age in the 70s influenced by fusion, the lyricism of Jarrett, and in the wake of free improvisation, grants him a larger stylistic palette to use. In the best moments of their concert—playing each other’s originals, or in most of the standards they chose—the contrasts between their personalities resulted in positive creative friction, sparking enjoyable back and forth between these two talented men.

However, there were times in the show—during their one and only completely free improvisation, or in the widely contrasting versions of Horace Silver’s “Peace”—where the result was less of a dialogue and more that of separate, out-of-kilter monologues. One wonders if these two selections would have come across more smoothly had there been more rehearsal time. “Pent-up House,” which started the second half, was unduly burdened by overly thick textures which seemed to bog down the spunkiness of the number.

These were ultimately minor bumps, though, in a musical meeting of two very interesting minds. They transformed Richard Rodgers’ lovely waltz, “Falling in Love With Love,” into a swinging 4-beat excursion, with a suspenseful introduction featuring stuttering repeated notes in dissonant aggregations. Werner’s solo in the second tune (was it “Ornithology?”; it definitely was a song that used the changes from “How High the Moon?”) was exhilaratingly fast. “Straight, No Chaser” was given a typical bop treatment, but in the middle Wofford laid down long-held chords, over which Werner dropped Monk plunks—piquant minor seconds—which were then carried by Wofford shifting up to a stride accompaniment.

That two musicians, given such short rehearsal time, could then appear before a large house and provide so much fun and imagination, was a jazz-lover’s delight. Any jazz artist takes a risk by creating something completely new on stage, and in a good concert such as this, there are far more hits than misfires. Let’s thank Holly Hofmann for booking musicians who can thrive in these situations, and Kenny Werner and Mike Wofford for displaying such grace under pressure.