John Surman, Howard Moody

Rain on the Window is a set of duets for John Surman on baritone and soprano saxophones and bass clarinet, and Howard Moody on the organ of Ullern Church in Oslo. Fifteen short pieces mix Surman's own tunes, free improvisations, an English folk song and a spiritual, all shaped by the long reverberation of the church.

The two first worked together on Surman's Proverbs and Songs in 1996, where Moody conducted and later also took over the organ part. Moody, conductor and musical director of the Sarum Orchestra in Salisbury, then asked Surman to write for that ensemble. Surman liked the way Moody handled the improvised sections, and after trial sessions in the church at Penshurst in Kent they were ready to record. The album was made in January 2006 with engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug and producer Manfred Eicher, and Surman wrote the liner notes.

Most pieces are Surman's, three are joint improvisations and one belongs to Moody alone. Dancing in the Loft is a free improvisation in which Surman's baritone voice is recognisable from the first phrase. Tierce is Moody's solo, an inward-turning spiral. The traditional O Waly Waly and the spiritual I'm Troubled in Mind are both given to the baritone, close to the plain melody. The closing Pax Vobiscum ends the record as a quiet baritone prayer. On other pieces Surman turns to the soprano and the bass clarinet, which change the colour of the duo against the same organ.

In Jazzwise, Duncan Heining called it "one of Surman's most atmospheric albums" and stressed that Moody, far from being a junior partner, supplies the deeper and darker colours. Ray Comiskey began his four-star review in The Irish Times in 2008 with "Saxophone and church organ are an unlikely coupling. But this is different." In the Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag, Manfred Papst singled out A Spring Wedding and Pax Vobiscum among Surman's own pieces. Jazzpodium praised the recording itself, in which the depth and width of the nave can be felt physically. In the Rheinischer Merkur, Alexander Kluy noted that the two British musicians had found this unusual pairing inspiring for more than ten years.

This is the original CD edition, ECM 1986, released in April 2008.