In 1986 Dutch pianist, composer, and bandleader Michiel Braam founded his Bik Bent Braam big band, and for over a quarter century the group toured widely and recorded a number of first-rate avant and modern creative jazz albums, establishing a reputation -- alongside the such heavyweights as the ICP Orchestra and Willem Breuker Kollektief -- as one of the most wildly innovative large ensembles on the Dutch jazz scene. In 2011, Braam announced that the Bik Bent Braam saga would be coming to a close the following year, and planned a farewell tour for early 2012, featuring a set of new composed/improvised pieces under the program title Exit. "You could state that now it is time to take a next step," Braam said. "To let go of yet another certainty. I have the intention to keep performing with an ensemble of this size but in a more flexible setup. The pool of musicians will change with every new program. It is a choice to add more flexibility and more openness."

Braam fulfilled his intentions with the establishment of Flex Bent Braam, which recorded and released a debut disc, Lucebert, in 2013. Inspired by Dutch painter and poet Lucebert, a professed jazz lover, the album featured new Braam compositions based on Lucebert-penned Japanese epigrams along with covers -- in new and often radically altered Braam arrangements -- of standards by the likes of Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Cole Porter, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Tadd Dameron, and George Russell. (Lucebert was made available independently as a BBB label release and also as one of two CDs accompanying a 2013 book entitled Lucebert & Jazz: Ik Ben een Gemankeerde Saxofonist [I Am a Flawed Saxophonist]).

Lucebert featured a septet lineup including, in addition to Braam on piano, former Bik Bent Braam members Angelo Verploegen (trumpet), Wolter Wierbos (trombone), and Bart van der Putten (alto saxophone), as well as Oleg Hollmann (baritone saxophone), Tony Overwater (double bass), and Joost Lijbaart (drums). In accordance with Braam's conception for an ever-evolving group, this version of Flex Bent Braam was established specifically for the Lucebert project, and the album's liner notes confirmed that listeners could expect different lineups in the future. Flex Bent Braam performed music from Lucebert on a tour of The Netherlands in October and November of 2013, including appearances in Arnhem, Amsterdam, Baarle-Nassau, Utrecht, and Nijmegen. ~ Dave Lynch, Rovi