Stephen Braude asks for “steaming sensuality, and a rose between your teeth” in his description of “Big Dipper.” The pianist and composer had a splendidly excessive way of requesting a tango. His actual writing is economical: short melodic gestures, pauses, quick ornamental turns, notes allowed to linger. On Big Dipper, completed with Yamara Band and producer David Rodriguez, the eccentricity begins inside those phrases. The elaborate arrangements have something substantial to play with. Braude’s tunes establish a pattern clearly enough for a small alteration to register as an event.

In the title composition, a recognisable phrase returns several times, taking a slightly different direction with each appearance. Quick flurries of notes interrupt longer notes; the melody repeatedly settles after these little bursts of activity. The phrase offers familiarity while the surrounding music changes the terms. “Good Grooming” approaches the same problem through a returning groove. The mechanism interests me considerably: a repeatable groove prepares the listener for continuity, and a small change in direction makes that continuity briefly awkward. Braude gets considerable mileage from the distance between recognising a phrase and knowing where it will lead.

His colleagues are working around an unusually firm boundary. Braude’s piano performances were already recorded, and both he and arranger Ljubomir “Buba” Stojanovic died before the album was completed. After Braude’s widow, Gina Ruk, initiated its completion, Miodrag “Miško” Jovanovic and Rodriguez helped bring the material into its finished form. The composer’s contribution therefore includes the timing and articulation of an actual performance. New instrumental parts can respond to those decisions, thicken their surroundings or introduce another melodic strand. The practical question concerns how much room each composition leaves for another musician.

On the extended title track, Sarah Thiele’s wordless vocal supplies an especially apt answer. A voice and a piano have different ways of carrying a line: a struck note decays, while breath can sustain and shape a pitch. Using a singer as an instrumental voice makes that difference available to the arrangement, with melody taking priority over verbal explanation. Elsewhere, the saxophone of Charles McNeal joins guitar and horns in “Good Grooming.” Braude’s request for a performance “with added mousse” offers a useful clue to his attitude towards polish. The joke sits alongside the music’s careful construction. The players receive both a practical direction and permission to enjoy themselves.

For a closer look at how much character the piano writing already contains, the bass figure in “Creepy Crawlers” is particularly revealing. A recurring piano pattern moves beneath longer notes and stretches of silence. The melody occasionally takes an unexpected turn, introducing a change of mood while the recurring accompaniment keeps the piece moving. The melody can wait, arrive a little late or hold a note for longer than expected. I find that distribution of activity more compelling than the title’s invitation to imagine something crawling. The rhythm supplies a specific form of unease.

The album’s “Creepy Crawlers – Slithering Serenade” recasts that material with a different rhythm, effects and unusual instrumental textures. Changing the rhythm alters the movement of the piece itself; the arrangers are taking considerable liberties with the composition’s framework. Across the record, programmed elements join newly recorded instrumental contributions around the existing piano. Such a setup can accommodate several levels of intervention, from adding another part to rebuilding the rhythmic setting. The reworked rhythm is an especially concrete example of collaboration reaching into a piece’s structure. Braude’s recorded contribution and the subsequent arrangement belong to different stages of its development.

My reservation concerns the allocation of time. The opening “Big Dipper” and closing “Big Dipper – Tango Noir” occupy roughly ten minutes of a thirty-six-minute album. Several other compositions receive around three minutes, while “Slithering Serenade” gets just over two. One composition consequently commands a disproportionate share of the record’s attention.

I would happily exchange some of the second title-track appearance for further development of “Creepy Crawlers,” whose bass pattern and changing harmonic colours contain enough material to support a longer treatment. The bookends impose a hierarchy that I find less convincing than the writing itself. A compact record can still distribute its space unevenly.

My favourite flourish associated with “Good Grooming” is Braude’s request for “added mousse.” The instruction gets the proportions exactly right. Musical discipline comes first; the hair product is discretionary. Braude gives the players a rhythm to observe and a ridiculous detail to enjoy, each in the same breath. The rose can stay between the tango player’s teeth. The pause in the melodic line is doing the flirting.