"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:"

Volume II

"Dedicated to a creature half woman half horse who leaps across the crags of Mount Pelion in search of Sound as holy as the Fall splendor of a kardamon-green world ablaze with the blood-red fire of a dying sun before night releases it anew, so many dawns as yet unlit.

Big thanks to Santi, Matt and Mark, Sean and Tom, for their amazing playing and humanness and friendship. Also to Christopher Hoffman, Ryan Streber; the NY State Pandemic Insurance; Lou for love and luminosity; and full gratitude to Adam Hopkins for making this double-release a reality, echoes and echoes of day."-Out of Your Head

Liner Notes by Jim Macnie:

"I had a little chuckle after Michaël Attias handed me his LuMiSong album at an early May show in Brooklyn. I've seen the bandleader perform numerous times, and have long felt his skills at creating reflective music were just as potent as those he uses to wax expressive. Meaning an Attias hush, whether curt or prolonged, often provides the emotional impact of an Attias explosion. The expertise required for each resides in the Israel-born, Paris-raised, Minneapolis-schooled, New York-wisened saxophonist, and I particularly dig it when both get equal time during one of his performances. The chuckle came on the bus ride home, when I noticed the cover art's graphically split letters of his name and mixed-case letters of the album title - each reminded me of his music's two-fold strengths.

But this isn't about musical dichotomies, exactly. Attias's positioning of ballads and barnburners doesn't cast them as being contrary to each other, or find them isolated by discrete personality traits. Indeed, as we hear on Kardamon Fall, they're allies, bolstering each other and leading the program towards a richer geography. You can feel their relationship blossom in the album's first two pieces. "Kardamon Spring (Femme Centaure)" is a lithe string of flutters and sighs - a portentous evening breeze which wafts by out of nowhere. "Trinité" is far more brazen, delivering a repeated riff that stirs up trouble everywhere it goes. Heard in succession, they're signposts of what can be expected down the road. Better, they're indicators that Attias' artistry is able to blend both approaches. The term "synthetic" is oft used when describing something unpleasant, but here four musicians - pianist Santiago Leibson, bassist Sean Conly, and drummer Tom Rainey - hybridize temperaments, finding ways to be both pensive and provocative in the same breath. To me, that's kind of magical.

While schooling me on the program's genesis, the bandleader mulled over this notion of developing assorted feels in any given passage - an endeavor he's fully taken with. Attias cites Ornette's "Lonely Woman," Monk's radiant ballads, and parts of Andrew Hill's book as examples of work that simultaneously renders multiple moods, quickly adding Janáček, Berg, and a scad of Brazilian music to the list.

"Around the time I was putting this together I was reading Eros The Bittersweet by the poet Anne Carson," he says. "She mentions how what we call bittersweet is called sweetbitter in Greek - they put the sweetness first. Eros is both joy and destroyer; sweetness can turn tragic and tragedy can turn sweet. That resonated with me. It's how I feel about music, and it's how I feel about life. Never one thing only. Ambiguity and richness. Maybe that's what you're talking about?"

Maybe. Of course in a practical sense it has to do with the composer's relationship to those bringing the pieces to life. Attias is fully taken with the depth of his band's teamwork. "There's so much trust with us - the whole recording process felt kind of holy. With Santi's level of intuition, Sean delivering his buoyancy thing, Rainey shaping the performance while letting it unfold - we were in the zone from note one."

United, these attributes birth a music that deeply appreciates graceful momentum, regardless of whether it consistently reveals itself. The bandleader is a fan of groove but doesn't mind if it sometimes shares the spotlight with texture - both are in cahoots when it comes to sculpting a piece's final character. Another key trait: the shell game going on between notation and improv. Some passages yield clues to what's written; occasionally it's tough to tell. One thing's certain: a balance is usually struck. "There's an awareness of a larger cycle," says Attias, "a crescendo that can yield decay. When tonality breaks down, it releases its most beautiful colors."

Speaking of dualities, this release is unique in that it contains TWO volumes of Quartet Music in two distinct settings. LuMiSong, which dropped back in March, is family to Kardamon Fall. Cut during Covid, it's the product of a mash-up process Attias sometimes employs in his theater music. Here, Matt Pavolka and Mark Ferber comprise the rhythm section, with Leibson on piano. "The initial playing was solid; it had enough construction and fire that I could start layering keybs on top, adding a sax track or whatever to sculpt it. Once I started, it became clear: this is a different kind of project that will involve solitude, me messing with it alone after the session. It actually felt fitting for a lockdown record."

It, too, boasts an amalgamation aesthetic - those layers add a density, but these animated pieces are still marked by the way their rhythmic thrust can whip up a squall or two. Which brings us back to Kardamon Fall's "Manners," perhaps the best example of this aura-weaving we're on about. By the time the performance has squeezed its yen for abstraction into its respect for acceleration, a micro symphony has blossomed, conjuring the composer's useful references of "light/dark or feminine/masculine." Like much of this fetching music, it seduces by delivering sophisticated, and rather irresistible, atmospheres."