Jazz Review review by Glenn Astarita

Michael Attias – Renku in Coimbra (CF 162)
A renku is a form of Japanese poetry that originated over one thousand years ago.  Here, superfine and somewhat under-recognized saxophonist Michael Attias uses the renku as an interactive jazz frontier with his crack rhythm section.  The musicians have performed on and off since 2003.  Unsurprisingly, their intuition and synergy looms rather prolifically throughout.  Thus, Attias is one of the best in the biz, and this 2009 endeavor reemphasizes that notion in glimmering fashion.

The trio attains a translucent balance, where sheer-might, eloquence and capacious movements ride atop buoyant, asymmetrical pulses.  Attias is a fluent technician who injects variable amounts of gusto, soul and warmth into the grand scheme, while possessing a fluent attack.  On sax great Lee Konitz’ “Thingin,” the musicians gel to a carefree setting, sparked by Satoshi Takeishi’s dance-like brush patterns across the snare drum.  Moreover, Attias’ conjures up a wistful mindset as the band gradually instills tension, which is an element that carries forth on the following and somewhat scrappy free-form piece, “Do & the Birds.”

It’s no secret that Takeishi is a multitasking performer.  With this outing, he integrates small percussion implements and tiny cymbal hits to add texture and rhythmic color.  And Attias is a master at understating a primary melody line, akin to the intent of an author unfolding a plot.  The trio effectively mixes it up during late saxophonist Jimmy Lyons’ composition “Sorry,” as they render a scorching bump and grind motif, spotted with variable flows and the leader’s sizzling flurries.  They close out the program with a reprise of the first piece “Creep,” via extended unison notes and Attias’ harmonious alignment with bassist John Hebert.  Sure enough, Attias and his associates are at the very top of their game throughout this irrefutably compelling musical statement.
http://www.jazzreview.com/cd/review-20900.html

Gapplegate Music review by Grego Edwards

Michael Attias Blends the Cool and the Hot in New CD

Michael Attias – Renku in Coimbra (CF 162)
There are times when you welcome an unfamiliar name and sound to the music corpus that constitutes your listening and playing life. Other times perhaps you can be satiated and nothing gets through the jaded ears into the appreciative consciousness. Then too, it can be that only the last few listenings in a cycle of familiarity can make everything clear to your musical head.

Michael Attias got through to me as a voice that should be heard only after a couple of listens to his excellent Renku In Columbra (Clean Feed).This is a showcase for his cool-hot alto playing, a subtle commodity that charms and caresses the senses with a real facility but also a sensitive sense of phrase and form.

The album runs through several originals by Michael and the formidably propellant bassist on the date, John Hebert. Then there are rather unknown but interesting pieces by Lee Konitz and Jimmy Lyons, one apiece.

Besides Hebert, drummer Satoski Takeishi adds a groovingly out presence. Russ Lossing joins the fray on piano for one cut.

This is improvisation as high art. Attias and Hebert are masterful, impressive, loquacious. Takeishi is alternately bombastic and playful, subtle and driving.

It shows that Michael Attias can create a sound on the alto that has a classic ring to it–cool like the coolists, hot like the new thingers, but filled with really interesting and original phrasing. These cats can swing and they can tumble out of time. They do either like they own their music, authoritatively. I am happy to get a chance to hear Attias and company hold forth so effectively on Renku. You might well feel the same way.
http://gapplegatemusicreview.blogspot.com/

Chicago Reader review by Peter Margasak

Michael Attias – Renku in Coimbra (CF 162)
Fluent, stylish saxophonist MICHAËL ATTIAS—whose long history with local cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm includes playing together in New York combos like Peep and Anthony Coleman’s Self-Haters in the early 90s—is the most jazz-oriented participant. On the excellent new Renku in Coimbra (Clean Feed), a trio outing with bassist John Hebert and drummer Satoshi Takeishi, he’s impressively limber and resourceful, creating a graceful continuity even when he pares a solo down to a series of elliptical phrases. A sharp version of Lee Konitz’s “Thingin'” evokes west-coast cool, while the original tune “Do and the Birds” both lurches and glides, its interactions more turbulent but no less intuitive.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/Event?oid=1344660

All About Jazz concert review by David R Adler

Michael Attias
Barbes
Brooklyn, NY December 3, 2009

Michael Attias is known for his work on alto and baritone saxophones, but on the new Clean Feed disc Renku In Coimbra he plays only alto. This was his game plan too at Barbes (Dec. 3rd), where he gathered together his Renku trio with bassist John Hebert and drummer Satoshi Takeishi. The music of Attias’ alto sax heroes bookended the set, starting with Jimmy Lyons’ “Sorry” and ending with Lee Konitz’ “Thingin,'” both of which appear on the new CD. Of course these tunes took on the spiky, free-flowing coloration that Attias and his partners have developed so beautifully, a language of sparsely orchestrated yet precise themes, open harmony and intuitive transitions. Without a pause, “Sorry” gave way to Hebert’s slowly pulsing “Wels” and Attias’ three-part “Bad Lucid,” broken up by virtuosic unaccompanied bass and a drum break that found Takeishi assaulting his snare from underneath. The bass-drum interplay crackled on Hébert’s “Fez,” with Takeishi hand-drumming at first, then moving on to more aggressive accents. Attias shifted the mood with a lyrical intro to his balladic “Lisbon,” inviting a fluent overlapping texture of arco, brushes and cymbal washes from the band. With the jazzier bounce of Attias’ “Spun Tree,” the leader forcefully took charge, navigating a tricky form with fire and poise. He drew improvisational focus from the simple melody of “Thingin'” before closing with “Renku,” the trio’s theme song, full of drive and contrapuntal detail. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=35211

Free Jazz review by Stef

Michael Attias – Renku In Coimbra (CF 162)
****
In partnership with John Hébert on bass and Satoshi Takeishi on drums, alto saxophonist Michael Attias releases a really sensitive and passionate album, all in a post-boppish mode, with covers of Lee Konitz’ “Thingin'” and Jimmy Lyons’ “Sorry”, but with a range and sensitivity that goes a step further. Listen to “Do & The Birds” to hear some real beauty emerge out of random sounds, in the most free form imagineable. Although the performance was recorded in one afternoon at the occasion of a jazz festival in Coimbra, Portugal (but not at the festival), the trio has been playing together since 2003, and that can be heard. They are joined by Russ Lossing on piano on “Fenix Culprit” the most intense track. And although half of the tracks are composed by Hébert, the main voice obviously is the alto. The lyricism of Attias is astounding, his tone is warm and sensitive, and without raising his voice, his tone is quite powerful. Hébert and Takeishi are the perfect band mates: precise, responsive and playing with the same level of disciplined passion. http://freejazz-stef.blogspot.com/

Clean Feed on All About Jazz New York “Best of 2009” list

Best Record Label
CLEAN FEED

Best New Release 2009
Herculaneum – Herculaneum III (CF 140)
Steve Adams Trio – Surface Tension (CF 131)

Best New Release 2009 – Honorable Mention 
Denman Maroney Quintet – Udentity (CF 137)
Harris Eisenstadt – Canada Day (CF 157)
Marty Ehrlich Rites Quartet – Things Have Got To Change (CF 150)
Michael Blake/Kresten Osgood – Control This (CF 136)
Paul Dunmall’s Sun Quartet – Ancient and Future Airs (CF 138 )
Renku – In Coimbra (CF 162)
Steve Swell – Planet Dream (CF 148 )
Trespass Trio – “…was there to illuminate the night sky…” (CF 149)

Best Debut Release
Nobuyasu Furuya Trio – Bendowa (CF 159)

Best Original Album Artwork 
Avram Fefer – Ritual (CF 145)

Stash Dauber review

Mo’ Clean Feed Records
The demand for free jazz and creative improvised music must be a whole lot greater in Europe than it is here in these United States, because the folks at Clean Feed Records in Lisbon continue to release interesting, challenging recordings at a rate that would probably break the bank at an American label. Once again, it’s a varied bunch:

Will Holshouser Trio + Bernanrdo Sassetti – Palace Ghosts and Drunken Hymns (CF 161)
New York-based accordionist Will Holshouser and his drummerless trio meet up with Portuguese pianist Bernardo Sassetti on Palace Ghosts and Drunken Hymns. Together, they produce a music of lush romanticism, highlighted by Ross Horton’s trumpet, which alternately waxes lyrical and sings sassy, and Dave Phillips’ lovely work on arco bass. This is chamber jazz at its best, alternately wistful and playful, cast from the same mold as Dave Douglas’ Charms of the Night Sky. The title refers to the music’s European setting (recorded in Portugal) and “the mysterious link between alcohol and spirituality,” which sounds good to me.

Michaël Attias Renku – In Coimbra (CF 162)
Well-traveled Israeli-born altoist Michael Attias has a pensive sound, influenced by Lee Konitz and Jimmy Lyons (both of whom have compositions covered on Renko in Coimbra), with an acrid tone and acerbic ideas. He’s ably supported here by bassist John Hebert and drummer Satoshi Takeishi. The three can play with Art Ensemble of Chicago-like minimalism (“Do & the Birds”) or David S. Ware-ish intensity (“Fenix Culprit,” featuring a cameo by pianist Ross Lossing), sounding their best on “Universal Constant,” where their dialogue moves from abstraction (with Satoshi applying some extended techniques to his traps) to something approaching funk.

Empty Cage Quartet – Gravity (CF 161)
Empty Cage Quartet are so called because the members’ initials spell out MTKJ. “We are not conceptualists,” trumpeter Kris Tiner insists, in Gravity’s liner notes, which rival Cecil Taylor’s for density (if not obscurity). He and his mates Jason Mears (sax, clarinet), Ivan Johnson (bass) and Paul Kikuchi (drums) play through alternating sections from two pieces (“Gravity” and “Tzolkien”) that sound through-composed but are probably improvised, their horn polyphony and tightly-tuned drums evoking an agreeable collision of Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” with Out to Lunch, Point of Departure, or one of those.

Tony Malaby Apparitions – Voladores (CF 165)
Voladores is the latest outing for Tony Malaby’s Apparitions. On tenor, Malaby raises a plaintive cry like mid-‘60s Ornette on the previously unrecorded Coleman composition “Homogeneous Emotions,” and gets a burry, Sam Rivers-like sound on “Old Smoky,” where he’s as forceful as Rivers can be in a trio setting. On “Dreamy Drunk,” he comes across like Archie Shepp channeling Ben Webster and makes effective use of multiphonics. The basic horn-bass-drums trio is augmented by John Hollenbeck’s tuned percussion, which adds textural variety to the proceedings. On “Sour Diesel,” Hollenbeck injects melodica into the harmonic mixture (the way Jack Dejohnette used to on his ECM sides) while Malaby follows a circuitous melodic path on soprano. Might just be the pick of this litter.

Jason Stein’s Locksmith Isidore – Three Less Than Between (CF 153)
To play the bass clarinet is to invite comparisons to Eric Dolphy, but Jason Stein — a native Lawn Guylander now based in Chicago — volunteered to be thrown into that briar patch after switching from guitar as a teenager. On Three Less Than Between, he’s creating a vocabulary for his instrument on the fly as he goes: growls, squeals, intervallic leaps, and staccato lines, aided by a rhythm section – bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Mike Pride – that’s equally inventive in supporting him. “Isn’t Your Paper Clip” explodes with energy, culminating in an old-fashioned clattering drum solo; the denouement is a relatively straightahead interlude with walking bass, followed by a restless bass solo with sympathetic drum accompaniment.

Nicolas Masson Parallels – Thirty Six Ghosts (CF 163)
Nicolas Masson Parallels’ Thirty Six Ghosts is proof that the land of William Tell has produced more than just watches and chocolate. The Shorteresque tenorman and his all-Swiss quartet (which features electric piano and stand-up bass) play a mostly introspective brand of jazz that’s informed by a love of 20th century composed music and, less audibly, alt-rock. Not surprisingly, the proximate model here is a less wired/weird version of early ‘70s Miles, particularly on the relentlessly funky “Hellboy.”

The Godforgottens – Never Forgotten, Always Remembered (CF 164)
The Godforgottens is the name adopted by Swedish trumpeter Magnus Broo and the Sten Sandell trio. On Never Forgotten, Always Remembered, they perform three lengthy extemporations – the longest nearly 20 minutes – with titles that are variants of the album’s title. On “Always Forgotten,” they create brooding, oceanic swells with Sandell playing first-time Hammond B3 as well as piano. “Never Remembered” starts with a cascade of drum thunder from Paal Nilssen-Love, over which Broo and Sandell spar. “Remembered Forgotten” starts as a duel between Broo and Nilssen-Love before Sandell and bassist Johan Berthling enter the fray. Their interchanges can be either exhilarating or exhausting, depending on your point of view.
http://stashdauber.blogspot.com/2009/12/mo-clean-feed-records.html

All About Jazz review by Martin Longley

Michael Attias – Renku In Coimbra (CF 162)
Within the realms of his Renku trio, the reed specialist Michaël Attias deliberately glides towards a contemplative space. His partners in sensitivity are bassist John Hébert and drummer Satoshi Takeishi. In this setting, Attias deliberately confines himself to the alto saxophone, although his sonic results are anything but self-shackled. Often, when Attias is playing around the city he’ll be soloing more aggressively or crafting sharply jabbing themes as part of a thrusting frontline. Most of the pieces here inhabit a peaceful zone, allowing maximum potential for individual elaboration. There’s a hovering, circulatory motion, with these three playing at the traditionally lyrical end of their range.
Renku is a form of Japanese poetry that usually involves real-time collaboration. These sessions were recorded in Coimbra, Portugal, when his quintet was playing a three-nighter at the 2008 Jazz ao Centro Clube Festival. Although Attias is the leader, he only provides two compositions, with Hébert bringing three, the songbook completed by a tune apiece from Jimmy Lyons and Lee Konitz. The latter’s “Thingin'” has Attias capering lightly, Takeishi’s brushes glancing lightly around his skins and cymbals, Hébert’s bass creeping underfoot.

Abstraction reigns on “Do & The Birds,” with Takeishi pottering around his field of gongs and woodblocks. Attias enters over a thrumming bass line, delicately flamingo-legging through their terrain. “Fenix Culprit” makes a hectic dash, Attias squirming out his lines, letting them wriggle seductively past the ears. This track features guest Russ Lossing on piano.

All of the compositions keep their duration down concisely, fomenting direct communicativeness. “Sorry” (the Lyons tune) features outstandingly dexterous bass and drum solos towards its conclusion and all three players are both wiry and supple on “Universal Constant.” When Hébert’s opening “Creep” is reprised at the disc’s close, it recalls an Art Ensemble Of Chicago feeling of mournful yearning.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=34823

Jazz and Blues review Tim Niland

Michael Attias – Renku in Coimbra (CF 162)
Saxophonist Michael Attias has been active for a decade and a half in New York City as leader and sideman with the likes of Paul Motian. This subtle and thoughtful album is mostly in a trio setting with John Hebert on bass, Satoshi Takeishi on drums, and Russ Lossing on piano for one track. Recorded live in a club in Coimbra, Portugal without an audience this is an album filled with thoughtful and patient meditations on the saxophone trio. “Creep” opens the album with mild and gentle probing saxophone. A subtle bass solo takes over before quietly yearning alto sax returns. “Thingin'” has amiable uptempo trio improvisation featuring some nimble and dexterous plucked bass. “Do & the Birds” has an abstract introduction of scraped percussion and plucked bass, setting a mysterious pace for the saxophone to comment on. Lossing sits in for “Fenix Culprit” and his piano propels a quartet improvisation that is fast and exciting. “Wels” slows things back down to a smoothly flowing medium tempo. Subtle percussion opens “Sorry” before integrating angular and propulsive bass. Hebert is the key here and he takes a solo with has an appealing thick sound. “Universal Constant” and a reprise of the opening “Creep” round out an album that is filled with deft and thoughtful playing. There is nothing flashy here, no one is showing off or playing for the gallery, and the music is all the better for it. There is a sense of comradeship amongst the band members, where everybody is moving toward the same goal.
http://jazzandblues.blogspot.com/

Satoshi Takeishi Interview by Nuno Loureiro

Title: Sound traveler
A drummer, percussionist and arranger, Satoshi Takeishi is one of those artists whose musical expansion is only comparable to the geographic one. In this interview, he speaks about the track he took from Mito, Japan, to New York, USA, where he lives since 1991, moving between jazz, Latin music and the sound sculptures of the Vortex project, where he and his wife Shoko Nagai explore free improvisation and real-time audio processing. Proto-memories of a sound traveler.

Before the past, the present. In what have you been working at?
I am currently working with a great Tunisian Oud player and singer, Dhafer Youssef. And also with Michael Attias’s projects, Renku and Twines of Colesion. I am constantly working with my wife, Shoko Nagai, on our electro-acoustic project Vortex.

Let’s go back in time, then. When did you started to get interested in percussions and, more concretely, in drums?
Actually, I started with a drum set and then gradually picked up percussion instruments. When I was in Berklee, a Brazilian drummer showed me how to play Samba with a stick and a hand on a single tom. That showed me how a single drum can express as much or even more of what a whole drum set can do. I am always interested in how to widen the scope of a simple element, whether it is a percussion instrument, a part of a drum set or a musical idea.

An interesting part of your musical formation was the four years you lived in Colombia. What was the importance of that experience, and in which way did it influenced your future work?
I can safely say that the time I spent in Colombia is the single most important event of my life, both musically and emotionally.  Myth, wonder, magic, mountains and rivers, dusty village street, humbleness and innocence, drama and comedy, humanity and tragedy and all colors and smells from flowers to food to people. These are the core of my sound. And all these things stays with me and they keep me alive in their myth.
 
Who were the most significant figures to you, from the learning point of view?
 I never really had an idol figure. I am always and forever grateful to my teacher, Jimmy Southerland (who is no longer with us), who told me to play drums “with my ass screwed to a drum stool”. Hope you are proud of me, Jimmy…

After that, was the fact of studying and performing with Joe Zeytoonian the opening of a new conceptual “window”?
Yes, it was. And I have to give you a little background to the story. This was in Miami in the late 1980s. If you can imagine how frustrated I was, trying to explore more experimental side of music. Joe was the only person I could share this idea. The idea of playing music in an unconventional way. He is a master of Arabic, Turkish and Armenian music, and a great improviser. So we just did a lot of duo or trio, playing with his partner Miriam, who is also a great percussionist and a dancer.

At which point did your musical track led to jazz?
Pop, rock, funk, fusion, Brazilian, Afro-Cuban, jazz, free improv, Colombian, Arabic, Turkish, African, Eastern European, electronics, etc… That is more or less the order I came to learn different styles of music. Jazz is only one part of my learning process.

Was the fact of you living in the USA meaningful, at that level?
Big time. Especially in New York, where every type of great talent gathers. And this makes it easy to experiment with all types of art forms. Of course, it is sometimes hard not to get lost, but as long as you know what you want, you’ll find it. I do a lot of projects which will be impossible to do in other places.
 
Being in America, was it easy to maintain the connection with the world of Latin music?
Miami is a city with a huge Latin community, so as New York City. You can work only with Latin music if you like.

On the other hand, and taking in account the multicultural perspective of your work, do you still close to your Japanese roots?
I would say that my Japanese roots/influence is in my sound, whether I like it or not. What’s interesting about this is that I have about five years of experience playing music in Japan and about 25 years abroad. Yet, I still carry certain feeling about Japanese roots within me.

Throughout the years, you’ve collaborated with several and varied names of the jazz scene (Ray Barretto, Anthony Braxton, Erik Friedlander and Michael Attias are only four names in a vast list). Is it possible for you to name the most important or meaningful experiences you had, regarding personal enrichment and musical evolution?
In my case, all those moments of “musical enlightenment” happened in a very casual moment. Like in a brass band practice room in my junior high school or a small bar in Bogota, or a club in Miami, etc… I was playing in all those moment and then, all of a sudden, “music really made sense”.  Having said that, I know that every musician I have played with blessed me with “meaningful experiences”.

Another aspect of your work is improvisation. Is it a consequence of your personal approach to music, or just a will to experiment?
To me, improvisation is a test of strength. Performing without premeditation can reveal a lot of inner self sometimes, and it could be disappointing. But it will give me strength to deal with music in any situation.
 
How do you apply that concept to jazz playing?
It helps me to be free inside a structured form.

The subject of improvisation leads us to Vortex, where you explore audio processing through computerized systems. When have you first started using electronics?
About seven years ago.

Do you find any relation between its use and the perspective of have on percussions?
Both (electronics and percussion) are tools to make music for me. My approach is the same, whether it is electronics or percussion or a drum set.

What kind of balance have you acquired, meanwhile, between the acoustic and electronic dimensions, in terms of sound and composition?
I like electronics to be the extension of acoustic sound. That is why I usually don’t use any sound material other than what’s on a stage, when I am performing. Live sampling, then processing. I still have a lot of things to work it out, but I see a great possibility in trying to combine improvisation, electronics and acoustic elements.