A key player of all that jazz

On Nov 21, 2016, Dai held a concert featuring music by Kapustin in Moscow. The very next day, he visited the composer at his home in the city. It was the first and only time they met, though they had been communicating through email since 2014.

That day was Kapustin's 79th birthday. Dai played the composer's Sunrise (Daybreak) Op 26, with an impromptu performance of the song, Happy Birthday.

"I had been looking forward to seeing him. I had many questions, but when we finally met, I didn't want to ask any at all. It was an honor to meet him and when he listened to my performance, especially the song Happy Birthday, he smiled, a moment which I will never forget," recalls Dai.

Dai names the new album New Memories because the day he met Kapustin was significant to him personally. "After that day, everything is new, which then forms my new memories," says Dai.

Born in the town of Gorlovka in eastern Ukraine, Kapustin moved to Moscow and began piano lessons at the age of 14. From 1945, he began to discover jazz, developing a career as a jazz pianist and composer, with a compositional style that fused jazz and classical music.

Kapustin died on July 2, 2020, at the age of 82, in Moscow.

"I've been looking for different ways to build conversations with my music. This new album is like a conversation between Kapustin and me," says Dai, adding that he has been listening to Kapustin's music since 2014, when he studied in New York. Through email, he sent Kapustin his interpretations of the Russian composer's music and they exchanged musical ideas.

Growing up in Beijing, Dai started playing jazz at a young age. He relocated to New York in 2014 and began to collaborate with local jazz musicians, including bassist Larry Grenadier and Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer Eric Harland, with whom he recorded his jazz trio album, One Step East, in 2019.

Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist and composer Michel Camilo regards Dai as "a highly creative and accomplished jazz pianist, who is also a gifted composer" and the "first Chinese jazz pianist to achieve international recognition".

Dai is also credited with promoting cultural exchange and raising awareness and understanding between China and the West, through the performance of original works which seamlessly fuse aspects of both cultures.