Like his celebrated regular pianist and compatriot Fergus McCreadie, young Glasgow saxophonist and composer Matt Carmichael is as deeply immersed in Scottish folk music as he is in contemporary jazz, and his latest release, Dancing With Embers, emphasises that in a dozen evocatively songlike themes – reserving unfettered improv for brief variations here, though apparently extended in the looser settings of his live shows.

That might limit Carmichael’s appeal for some jazz listeners, but his deep affection for his materials is unquestionable. From the outset this album sounds like a song-collection without a singer (there’s only one, Strathspey singer/songwriter Rachel Sermanni’s entrancing contribution to the moonlight-on-water theme ‘Mangata’) but Carmichael’s skilful band smooths the transition. A piano roll and ripple surround a wistful fiddle swirl on the opening of ‘A Distant Glow’, before the piano line shifts gear to a Jarrett-like rocking vamp soon joined by softly-squeezed electric guitar figures and the reel-like chatter and sway of Charlie Stewart’s fiddle.

Carmichael’s tenor sax unwraps a muscular dancing hook on ‘Flint’ over choppy fiddle and guitar grooves, and coasts over the violin’s dance on the dreamy ‘Stone Skimmer’; the title track is lustrous slow repeat of a smoky seven-note motif, hinting tantalisingly at an improv breakout that doesn’t arrive, while Brighde Chaimbeul’s haunting pipe-sound warms the tender ‘Beckoning Night’. A folk set as much as a jazz one maybe, but Dancing With Embers is a graceful, and very accessible, balance of both.