David Braid: Flow (2016)

The Canadian jazz pianist David Braid composed the music on Flow, wherein he is accompanied by the Czech Republic's Epoque String Quartet. Braid has collaborated with classical musicians in the past. Here the booklet delves into such rarefied concepts as "cultural consumption, absorption, and music rebirth in which qi [the source of the album's title] and pneuma are essential," and "filmic templates." The latter aspect is balanced against such rigorous technical devices as a 42 1/2-beat theme in the Joya Variations ... Read More

The Canadian jazz pianist David Braid composed the music on Flow, wherein he is accompanied by the Czech Republic's Epoque String Quartet. Braid has collaborated with classical musicians in the past. Here the booklet delves into such rarefied concepts as "cultural consumption, absorption, and music rebirth in which qi [the source of the album's title] and pneuma are essential," and "filmic templates." The latter aspect is balanced against such rigorous technical devices as a 42 1/2-beat theme in the Joya Variations (tracks 1 and 2). There is, in short, a lot going on here, but again there's a balance: the music is quite accessible on the surface, with varied contemporary jazz idioms held together by the string quartet, and a friendly harmonic palette. Sample any section of the seven-movement Chauvet, which does seem to evoke a sequence of disconnected cinematic scenes. Steinway's engineering team is working here in what must have been the unfamiliar surroundings of a Czech television studio, but they deliver the clarity and intimacy for which this American label has become known. Recommended for those interested in new directions in classical-jazz fusion. ~ James Manheim, Rovi Read Less