Marta Kloučková & David Dorůžka - How Little We Dream

If the concept of a jazz vocalist and guitarist duo conjures up the majestic pairings of Fitzgerald and Pass, or more recently Aimée and Valeanu, Parlato and Loueke, or the stellar live stylings of Joy and Grasso, the debut offering by Kloučková and Dorůžka may be a rousing wake-up call.

Yes, the familiar touchstones are there – a rich vocal palette coupled with a sensitive stirring of strings – but more often than not, the songs take an impressionistic scenic route that owes more to the journey than the destination. One is left with an unshakeable feeling of jamais vu – these are songs at once known, but seen through a gauzy, hallucinogenic fug.

It is this dream logic that plays upon Joni’s airy, hypnotic ‘Dreamland’; the slinky, funky take on Paul Simon’s ‘50 Ways’; the light touch that brings Carmichael and Mercer’s timeless ‘How Little We Know’ slam up to date; the quicksilver beat poetry of Monk’s ‘In Walked Bud’; or the shifting sands of Dylan’s ‘If You See Her, Say Hello’ that closes the set.

Most oddly, however: one leads where the other follows – a symbiotic paradox that betrays the duo’s unostentatious generosity. When two such talents share a lucid vision, there is no jockeying for space. Dreamland is coming on, indeed.