It is quite the paradox that the greatest ragtime player in the world, and one of the world’s best traditional jazz pianists, is from Norway. Morten Gunnar Larsen is best known to New Orleanians for his long association with Vernel Bagneris. He was one of the pianists in the legendary “One Mo’ Time” show (first performed at the Toulouse Theatre, then off-Broadway, then internationally). And he was dazzling as the pianistic accompaniment to Vernel’s portrayal of Morton in “Jelly!,” Bagneris’ off-Broadway two-man rebuttal to the slanderous Morton portrait in “Jelly’s Last Jam.”

Sorgenfri, a live concert recording from Denmark, is Larsen’s ninth solo album in a recording career dating back to 1975. He plays classic rags by Joplin and Lamb with unusual freedom and power, playing single notes as octaves, embellishing elaborately while maintaining essence. His Morton here is typically creative: “Dead Man Blues,” a band piece rarely played as a solo, with terrific dynamics; and “The Perfect Sporting House Rag,” a mash-up of the best ideas from two Morton versions of the same melody. There’s some great stride piano here too: James P. Johnson’s “Snowy Morning Blues” and an adaptation of Grieg’s “Anitra’s Dance,” by the lesser-known stride hellion Donald Lambert. Wonderful “raggish” pieces by Max Morath, David Thomas Roberts, Eubie Blake and Blind Boone round out the program.

Huge technique, imagination, a ferocious appetite for improvisation, tasteful embellishment when called for: Larsen has it all.