Put the sounds of a piano and a double bass together and the result is kind of funky, kind of snazzy, kind of cool and soulful. The melodies slide sultrily from jazz to blues, folk, pop and new age, but always back to jazz because that’s the backbone of the music that pianist Penelope Williams and bassist Jackie Pickett play together. The Atlanta-based duo will be performing six nights a week through July 28 at George’s Restaurant in Bar Harbor.

Williams and Pickett met two years ago at a jazz function in Georgia and have been performing together for more than a year. Separately, however, they have successful musical careers. Williams plays the nightclub circuit and concerts in Atlanta, and has toured in several other cities. Pickett has been a classical bassist for the Detroit Symphony and the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, and a big band bassist for the Music South Corporation. In August, she’ll be a recitalist for the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta.

With such a busy list of engagements in the south, why come Down East for a month in July?

Williams, who performed solo at George’s last summer, is quick to answer with a response that native Mainers have come to know well from artists.

“The environment here is so appropriate for creativity,” she says. “The landscapes and seascapes inspire me. Last year I came to perform but now I want to create.”

When Williams and Pickett are not rehearsing, they are likely to be sitting on the beach or hiking through Acadia Park where they listen for sounds to transcribe into what Pickett calls “environmentally inspired” music.

“This morning we were writing music together on the shore,” says Williams, who wrote a song called “Mainescape” during her engagement here last summer. “I was singing the melody of a bird I heard last year and I heard it again this year. Last year I wrote a song from that bird. The sounds of nature are in ancient, ethnic and folk music. It’s a people’s art.”

Living in a metropolitan area like Atlanta is a necessity for artists like Williams and Pickett, but the time in Maine has restimulated their creative energies. An important aspect of this process has been the way audiences and locals have received the musicians.

“It’s not just a performance,” says Pickett, who has a master’s degree from Yale and is currently completing a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “The audience and musicians together are what music is all about. There’s an effect, a rapport between audience and performer that brings a total atmosphere.”

Pickett is referring to the atmosphere at George’s where she and Williams perform from 9 p.m. until midnight in a small segment of the restaurant called the “studio room.” The live music recreates the feel of a classy jazz club while some late night diners may still be enjoying dinner, drinks or desserts. But everyone is serenaded and bewitched by Williams, pianist and chanteuse, and Pickett, bassist extraordinaire.

“We never know what’s going to happen,” says Pickett. “And that’s an advantage because it’s very improvisational, unpredictable and exciting. It’s like a first date.”

Pickett explains that the piano and bass are particularly complimentary because both are string and percussion instruments, and are capable of playing melody or rhythm. The bass is the closest instrument to the human voice, says Pickett, so when Pickett’s bass interacts with Williams’ jazzy singing voice, the effect is that of a rich duet.

Between 5 and 7 p.m. on July 24, Pickett and Williams will perform together live over WERU-FM. In the next few years, the duo plans to record an album called “Live at George’s” and hopes that this venture will be a pilot program for other artists who have been lured by the ambiance of the island and appreciative audiences.