With an ear to detail, Michaël Attias spent a year mixing and refining these four tracks, recorded after a post-pandemic concert at Barbes in Brooklyn, bringing to light four intricately melodic compositions performed with Michael Attias on alto sax, Santiago Leibson on piano & Wurli, Matt Pavolka on bass, Mark Ferber on drums and Christopher Hoffman on cello.
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Sample The Album:
Michael Attias-alto saxophone
Santiago Leibson-piano, keyboards
Matt Pavolka-bass
Mark Ferber-drums
Christopher Hoffman-cello
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Color insert sheet includes credits and liner notes by Michaël Attias.
UPC: 19850045247
Label: Out Of Your Head Records
Catalog ID: OOYH 031CD
Squidco Product Code: 35531
Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2024
Country: USA
Packaging: LP
Basic tracks recorded in New York City on June 12, 2021 at East Side Sound by Marc Urselli; keyboard overdubs at Douglass Studio in Brooklyn by Juan Manuel Trujillo on October 19, 2022. Additional recording, mix and master by Christopher Hoffman at his Bushwick studio in 2022/23.
"Creative jazz enthusiasts will rejoice at the return of alto saxophonist Michael Attias to the recording sessions, particularly upon experiencing his latest offering, Quartet Music Vol. I: LuMiSong. This date features him alongside pianist Santiago Leibson, bassist Matt Pavolka and drummer Mark Ferber, a quartet of talents whose collective synergy yields remarkable dividends when given creative freedom.
Unfurling in a 21-bar form, "#63 (Settled)" sets up the dynamics with a patterned propulsive motion steeped in odd meter and striking juxtapositions. A stringent theme takes us to Attias' intricate soloing language, a sardonic tone, and an uncompromising commitment to freedom. The rhythm section, buoyed by Leibson's Wurlitzer groove, demonstrates a matured focus on concept and mood, weaving a knife-edged lushness in the musical tapestry that serves as a fertile ground for improvisation.
The energy is unbounded and escalates further in the through-composed "Mister Softee is a Front", inspired by Attias' new neighborhood and informed by an advanced post-bop creativity that leans toward the avant-garde. The piece unfolds with a saxophone riff working together with fluid percussive streams, irregular bass adherence, and responsive piano, culminating in a brightly hued harmonic current in 5/4 time, inviting exploration.
The multi-sectional composition "NME" unfolds with intrigue, transitioning from a pensive sentiment to an expansive 15-beat cycle adorned with cluster chords and dubbed saxophone polyphony. The album ceases with "Hexway Liner", whose inquisitive piano intro gives rise to a theme marked by cryptic intervallic range and smart chromaticism. Guest cellist Christopher Hoffmann contributes ideas in post-production, working around the periphery of the tune.
As an out-of-the-box sonic architect, Attias conceives music that expands our horizons and plays with our musical preconceptions. Requiring open-mindedness to be deeply entrenched, this is an utter and complete joy to listen to."-Filipe Freitas, JazzTrail
Michael Attias describes each track:
""#63 (Settled)": When L. and I moved into our current home in Washington Heights, I consulted the Yi-King as I always do on momentous occasions, and through chance operation (tossing coins six times) obtained hexagram 63, coincidentally the number of my new apartment and most auspiciously entitled "Settled". Perfect! The rhythmic, metric and harmonic materials of #63 were derived from the superimposition of the oracle's two trigrams: 2-3-2 over 3-2-3 (7 over 8)-water over fire. The several wurli and synth parts and saxophone harmonies were added in post-production. Like Hexway, this is a 21-bar form ( 3 x 7 bars of 4.)
Mr Softee Is a Front is a tale from my new hood about the ice cream truck that parks in a forlorn street running parallel to the off-ramp of the GWB (where no child will go.) As old-timers from the neighborhood will attest, Mr Softee is indeed a "front" and the theme it blasts through the long summer days summons its targeted customers for something else than ice-cream. You can hear fragments of this infuriating tune stretched and chopped during the exposition and coming out of the (killing!) piano solo. Multi-sectioned and through-composed, it's the only fully live-in-the-studio piece on the record and the band (everyone is featured) eats it up.
"NME", or The Enemy, is built on a symmetrical scale voice-led through a cycle of ascending fifths. The first part is a slow-moving fully-notated piano/bass duet that evolves into an open improvisation, while a quiet synth colors (contaminates) the overtone resonances of the piano. The second part, the groove section, is a 14-bar form with a notated drum part that spans two bars of 15/8 and can be felt both in 5 and as a big 3. The bass line is half the length (one bar of 15/8) and the rhodes halves it again (one bar of 15/16) on the repeat. In the first section, I superimposed two separate takes of the piano/bass duet. The quieter take, which I call the Ghost Band, is slightly faster and seems to anticipate the full-sounding flesh-and-blood band, like tape bleed. The two performances run simultaneously until just after the first groove-section theme. The idea of the Double returns in the alto solo(s). Santi, Matt and Mark play their asses off on this track (and all the others.) More wurli and synth overdubs on the themes. Piano and rhodes were live in the room.
"Hexway Liner", a cruise-ship to Hades, is another 21 bar form (3 x 7 bars of 3.) The materials expand and contract over the cycle (5-7-9-8-6-4-3 with the last section in retrograde). Intervals are derived from the same trichord Webern used in Op 24, forming the two hexachords that hold the music together while also pulling it apart. I'm sure early and late exposures to Devo, Threadgill and Stefan Wolpe are in the DNA of this piece. Christopher Hoffman- whose work on the post-production is integral to whatever this album has turned out to be- added some mean cello overdubs, otherwise this one is live."-Michael Attias:"
Also available as a Vinyl LP.Color insert sheet includes credits and liner notes by Michaël Attias.
Get additional information at Jazz Trail
Artist Biographies
• Show Bio for Michael Attias "Michaël Attias is a quietly fierce force on the international improvising scene. With a brisk and calming tone Attias is a thinker, traveler, questioner. Born in Israel, raised in Paris and the American Midwest, he has lived in NYC since 1994. As a leader, Attias has released five critically-acclaimed albums since 2005: Credo, Renku, Renku in Coimbra, Twines of Colesion and, in 2012, Spun Tree. As a sideman, he has performed and recorded all over the world alongside some of today's most compelling musicians: Anthony Braxton, Paul Motian, Anthony Coleman, Masabumi Kikuchi, Tony Malaby, Ralph Alessi, Oliver Lake, Tom Rainey, John Hébert, Nasheet Waits, Sean Conly, Ken Filiano, Kris Davis, and many others. His current projects include his long-standing trio Renku, with John Hébert and Satoshi Takeishi; Spun Tree, with Ralph Alessi, Matt Mitchell, Sean Conly, Tom Rainey; and the new Michaël Attias Quartet with Aruàn Ortiz, John Hébert and Nasheet Waits. Michaël Attias has also established himself as creator of live musical scores and sound designs for theatre including, since 2008, five collaborations with legendary director Robert Woodruff: Chair, Notes From Underground, Battle of Black and Dogs, Autumn Sonata, and In a year With Thirteen Moons. These were produced at such prominent New York and regional theatres as Yale Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Baryshnikov Arts Center, and The Duke on 42nd Street. Michaël Attias was named a 2000 Artists' Fellowship Recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts and was awarded a MacDowell Arts Colony fellowship in Fall 2008. From 2003 to 2008, he curated the critically acclaimed and highly successful new music series, Night of the Ravished Limbs, at Barbès in Brooklyn, welcoming a wide array of established names such as Barre Philips, Tim Berne, Mark Helias, Jason Moran, as well as an impressive list of rising New York talent including Mary Halvorson, Eivind Opsvik, Gerald Cleaver, and many more. Earlier The product of migrations spanning North Africa, the Middle East, Western Europe and the American Midwest, Attias was born in Haïfa, Israel in 1968 and spent the first part of his childhood in Paris, where he attended the music conservatory and studied violin for a brief period. His family moved to Minneapolis in 1977. An early passion for the music of Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman led him to start playing the alto saxophone at the age of 15 under the guidance of great Minneapolis saxophonist and composer Pat Moriarty, while attending the Children's Theatre School. Avid for adventure and experience, he graduated from high school as a junior and traveled for a year in Europe before enrolling at New York University as a Film and Music student. Somewhere in between, he had the great privilege of taking a couple of lessons with Lee Konitz. Judging that school was interfering with his education, he dropped out after the spring semester, went back to Paris for a year where he wrote a novel called Twines of Colesion (1000 pages thankfully destroyed), came back to the US for an eight-month cross-country trip that took him from New York City to San Francisco via Mexico, and returned to Paris in 1989 where he became bartender at the IACP, a music school founded by legendary bassist Alan Silva. There he met such heroes of the ex-pat scene as Steve Lacy, Sunny Murray, Frank Wright, Bobby Few and others. He recorded with a pianoless quartet dedicated to the music of Thelonious Monk, Four in One (In Situ 1992), made his first album as leader and composer with a quintet of French musicians (released on Igal Foni's For Elevators/Jazzis, 1993). In January 1993, at the prompting of Anthony Braxton, he moved back to the US, sat in on his classes at Wesleyan University for one semester and finally moved to New York the following winter." ^ Hide Bio for Michael Attias • Show Bio for Santiago Leibson "Santiago Leibson is a pianist and composer from Argentina, based in Brooklyn since 2014. As a leader, he has recorded solo, trio, and sextet formations. He's also an active member of various different projects including Lim Yang Zodiac Trio, Elsa Nilsson Band of Pulses, Matt Pavolka Band, Michaël Attias Quartet, Allan Mednard Trio, Nicolás Politzer Trio, and Michael Sarian Quartet. His performances often take place in New York and Brooklyn, as well as touring extensively in the U.S, Argentina, and Europe. Notable appearances include participation in the "Sophia Rossoff Presents" music series organized by the Abby Whiteside Foundation in 2019, 2022, and 2023." ^ Hide Bio for Santiago Leibson • Show Bio for Matt Pavolka "For twenty years bassist/composer Matt Pavolka has been a vital force in the New York Jazz and Creative Music scenes. A partial list of musicians and bands that he has performed with includes Lee Konitz, Paul Motian, Guillermo Klein, Chris Cheek, Kevin Hayes, Ben Monder, House of Illusion, Josh Roseman's Extended Constellations, Dave Binney, The Ryan Scott Orchestra, Magalie Souriou, Elysian Fields, Joe Beck, J. Geils, Tony Malaby, Bill McHenry, Matt Renzi and Ohad Talmor's Newsreel. He has toured extensively in the United States, Europe and Japan and can be heard on many recordings, including releases from Magalie Souriou, Guillermo Klein, Marlon Browdon, Andre Fernandes, Nate Radley, Noah Preminger and House of Illusion. He has released two albums as a leader, "Something People Can Use", on Tone Of A Pitch Records and "The Horns Band" on the Fresh Sounds, New Talent label. Pavolka grew up in Bloomington, Indiana. He began playing the trombone at an early age and studied with David Baker before heading to Boston to attend the Berklee College of Music on a full scholarship as a trombonist at age 18. He switched his major to bass in his first year there and was awarded an outstanding performance award on that instrument as well as the Charles Mingus Award for his work as a composer. He moved to New York in 1994. In addition to his work as a performing musician, composer and bandleader, he is active as a music educator. He is also the musical director for the Redeye Grill in Manhattan's live performance series." ^ Hide Bio for Matt Pavolka • Show Bio for Mark Ferber "Drummer Mark Ferber can be heard on nearly 200 recordings. Ongoing projects include ECM recording artist Ralph Alessi's 'This Against That', the Marc Copland trio, the Brad Shepik Organ Trio, and his twin brother, Alan Ferber's Grammy nominated big band and nonet. He currently maintains a busy freelance schedule throughout New York's jazz clubs, recording studios, and international touring circuit. Past work includes tours and recordings with Lee Konitz, Gary Peacock, Jonathan Kreisberg, John O'Gallagher, Don Byron, Fred Hersch, Tony Malaby, Anna Webber, Mark Helias, Pete McCann, Matt Pavolka, Michael Attias and Billy Childs, among others. Mark has taught extensively in the United States and Europe. He has worked as a faculty member for the California Institute of the Arts, the Tavira Jazz Workshop in Portugal, the School of Improvisational Music (SIM), The Maine Jazz Camp and The Lafayette Summer Music Jazz Workshop. He currently teaches privately out of the City College of New York. He was born and raised in Moraga, CA and received a degree in Biogeography from UCLA." ^ Hide Bio for Mark Ferber • Show Bio for Christopher Hoffman "Christopher is a cellist, composer, producer, engineer and filmmaker. He currently performs in Henry Threadgill's Pulitzer Prize winning ensemble Zooid, Anat Cohen Tentet, Kenny Warren Trio, Tony Malaby, Michael Blake, Darius Jones and his own projects. He has worked with Martin Scorsese, Yoko Ono, Bleachers, Iron & Wine, Ryan Adams, Marianne Faithfull, Michael Pitt & Pagoda, Marc Ribot, Butch Morris, Lee Konitz, Rudy Royston, Anna Webber, Ryan Scott, Anthony Coleman, Jeremiah Cymerman & many others." ^ Hide Bio for Christopher Hoffman
11/20/2024
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11/20/2024
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11/20/2024
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11/20/2024
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11/20/2024
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Track Listing:
1. #63 (Settled) 04:17
2. Mister Softee Is A Front 09:39
3. NME 11:00
4. Hexway Liner 04:40
Improvised Music
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