Soren Moller & Dick Oatts: "The Clouds Above"

A passionate joint: Jazz duets that will move you in ways you won’t quickly forget.

The magic of PR is breathing second-life into this ’08 masterpiece of jazz duets from Danish pianist Soren Moller and saxplayer/flautist Dick Oatts. Good that it did, too – it’s not often that I mumble, “Gee, not a lot of this kind of stuff comes in here” and not mean anything snarky by it.

Not ambiance, not chill, this is a truly passionate joint, the goal being European atmospherics, but with all the intimate look-seeing into these two players (and I don’t mean just the miking, which catches the physical swirling of air over Oatts’s reeds) it’s a Grimm’s fairy tale volume in song. Both of these guys try to hurt stuff, Moller banging at the keys as though hired to do a live soundtrack for an Olympic gymnast, Oatts doing an overtired Sonny Rollins, wringing alien squeals out of his sax. Yes, it’s Euro – the depth here isn’t something you get from your everyday overeducated Berklee crew – but more so it’s worldly, taking on Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet at one point.

More for headphones than dinner, this will move you in ways you won’t quickly forget.

By Eric Saeger

Homepage: Soren Moller