Listening to the beginning of "Three Grazing Arches," On the Move's leadoff track, you might think you understand Michiel Braam's Hybrid 10tet, but you're likely unprepared for the surprises to follow. After the horns announce themselves and Braam alternately pounds and glides with wild but cleanly articulated piano runs above a hammering rock vamp, the horns and string quartet (yes, string quartet) enter with fairly conventional roles, low brass harmonizing together as the strings accent in counterpoint. Cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum and trombonist Nils Wogram splatter their notes across the top as the rhythm section's backing becomes more skewed and dissonant. But the pounding vamp remains as the band churns toward more harmonically outré territory, then abruptly stops halfway through the track to let the strings sketch out calming lines against the horns' conversational babble -- notably including low sputters and vocalizations from tubaist Carl Ludwig Hübsch -- and clattering percussion from drummer Dirk-Peter Kölsch. That the whole group coalesces in a dirge pitched somewhere between New Orleans jazz and disquieted chamber music at the track's conclusion may seem surprising to some, but those acquainted with Braam from the avant big band Bik Bent Braam to the jazz-funk Wurli Trio know that he is a musical mixologist supreme, always on the lookout for intriguing juxtapositions within an overall jazz framework.

1		Three Grazing Arches
2		Cuba, North Rhine-Westphalia
3		The Indonesian Refuge
4		Fat Centered Gravy
5		A View to a Sound
6		Huize Jinnenberg
7		Pit Stop Ball Ad
8		El Frecuentemente
9		Rich Rabbit Research

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