Gifted veterans take on the old standards

A pair of electric guitars is one of the jazz world’s most potent instrumental combinations.

With the ability to generate rich chording, soaring single-note lines, propulsive strumming and more, the interactive potential for imaginative musicmaking can be almost limitless -- especially in the hands of players as imaginative as Anthony Wilson and Peter Bernstein, who opened a five-night run at the Jazz Bakery on Wednesday.

Both are gifted soloists, both have distinguished themselves as sterling accompanyists and both play with an admirable sense of musical coherence.

It took a few tunes in their opening set for them to get fully in sync, however.

Recalling that it had been 15 years since they had performed together in a similar setting, they started with passable versions of the old Jimmy Dorsey hit “I Hear A Rhapsody,” Miles Davis’ “Flamenco Sketches” and Willard Robison’s classic “Old Folks.”

But it wasn’t until they dug into Benny Golson’s “Stablemates” that the cream really began to rise to the top.

From that point on the program became a stunning combination of excellent choices of material, brilliantly played. Thelonious Monk’s “Light Blue,” a piece seemingly locked to the piano, was transformed into a fascinating excursion for two guitars, capturing both the plodding groove and the arch whimsy of the original.

Cole Porter’s “What Is This Thing Called Love?” served as an up-tempo launch pad for soloing, with Wilson’s bright-toned, riff-driven lines contrasting dramatically with Bernstein’s darker sound and structural melody-making.

A pair of jazz standards with poignant overtones -- Billy Strayhorn’s “UMMG (Upper Manhattan Medical Group),” written while he was undergoing cancer treatment, and Clifford Brown’s “Sandu” (first recorded in 1955, a year before his death, at 25, in an automobile accident) -- were played with a buoyant sense of swinging inventiveness that surely would have pleased their composers.

As good as the set was by the time it hit its peak, one can reasonably anticipate that Wilson and Bernstein will find even more musical connectivity as the week progresses, making the Bakery one of this weekend’s choice jazz destinations.

*

Peter Bernstein and Anthony Wilson

Where: 8 and 9:30 p.m., The Jazz Bakery, 3233 Helms Blvd., Culver City

When: Today through Sunday

Price: $25

Contact: (310) 271-9039