Nerve Dance
- saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and conceptualist Michaël Attias' sixth album
(available on Clean Feed Records, March 10, 2017), which deals with the
aesthetics of spontaneity, the theory of elasticity and the concept of equality
in music, is an expansive, spirited debut from Michaël Attias' new Quartet,
featuring Aruán Ortiz (piano), John Hébert (bass) and Nasheet Waits (drums). On
Nerve Dance, we are regaled with hearing four hearts, minds and bodies hooking
up at an extremely high level on nine Attias compositions, and two from Hébert.
Each piece exercises a different set of muscles and faculties for the band and
every member of the Quartet carries within them the historical knowledge and a
fluency in the multitude of dialects of this music; consequently we hear them
free within the compositions, deep into the zone of this collective creation,
transcending their respective instruments and completely surrendering to the
music.
Attias has
been influenced by literature, film, painting, extensive travel, life in
general, and of course, a wide spectrum of music, ranging from Moroccan Gnawa
rhythms to Renaissance Polyphony, Ligeti, Debussy and the 2nd Viennese School;
the AACM, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and Steve Lacy, also Andrew Hill, Paul
Motian, Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh, plus the first and lasting loves,
Ellington, Coltrane, Monk, Miles and Bird. Attias' music, while dedicated to
"creation" rather than "re-creation", remains firmly rooted
in the avant-garde, conceptualized as the true tradition of this music from its
earliest recordings onward. Attias asserts that the revolutionary, adventurous
spirit of the major figures of jazz, including his aforementioned influences,
made bold strokes of genius that only seem inevitable in retrospect, and have
paved the way for the audacious improvisers of today who remain singular and
fearless in the face of mass conformity. There exists an instinctual, visceral
need in Attias and his cohorts to play music that is honest, that rejects
inertness and fully embraces the meaning of creativity and evolution. This
music is found on Nerve Dance.
Attias, a
quietly fierce, improvising force on the international scene, has worked with
Anthony Braxton and Paul Motian, and is a frequent collaborator/sideman for
Kris Davis, Ralph Alessi, Tony Malaby, Oliver Lake, Anthony Coleman (and many
others), and also leads three bands, his new Quartet, Renku (featuring John
Hébert and Satoshi Takeishi), and Spun Tree (featuring Ralph Alessi, Matt
Mitchell, Sean Conly and Tom Rainey). He has also composed for theatre, film,
big band, and orchestra. So why this new Quartet, and why Ortiz, Hébert and
Waits? "There was a particular chemistry I was looking for and a kinship
of approach that I can only describe as a fiery mathematics whose combustion is
in the blowing itself, a group identity so strong that it becomes the
overriding composition. This band is big fun to play with. Everyone has in
common a deep lyricism and a very personal way of bringing design to the
turbulence and turbulence to the design. We all share a fearless commitment to
every moment of the music, to making it breathe and dance - balancing the yins
and yangs, fire and receptivity, mystery and clarity... Hébert, Nasheet and I
have played together in countless situations over the last fifteen years, and,
of course, those two for years played together with Andrew Hill whose music is
a big inspiration to us all. They bring a deeply singing quality and dance to
everything they do. Aruán is the new agent in this chemistry; he has all the
qualities I've mentioned and a kind of visionary approach to sound and time,
order and chaos that I really appreciate. Music demands of us, as players and
listeners, that we put our emotions, minds, bodies, and nervous systems on the
line and give it some attention, but the reward is that we can all share in the
dance", explained Attias.
Dark Net is
the most recorded piece of Attias'. Previously on Renku (2005), Renku in
Greenwich Village (2016) and on Eric Revis' Parallax (2013) with Jason Moran,
Ken Vandermark, and Nasheet Waits. "Hearing Eric's version prompted me to
revisit the piece both on the last Renku album and on Nerve Dance. It's in 3/4,
24 bars. The melody and bass line are two snakes coiling and uncoiling around a
6-beat phrase inspired by Elvin Jones. Intervals and durations are
twinned."
Nerve &
Limbo is a diptych - two radically different approaches to the same harmonic
material, which are woven back into the structure of the album later as Le
Pèse-Nerfs and Ombilique. "The 'active' Nerve section articulates a
metric-intervallic structure of variable length and transposition, the
'passive' Limbo is a listening to the accumulation of its overtones, inspired
by the piano sound of dear departed friend Masabumi Kikuchi."
Scribble Job
Yin Yang - "Another in the series of tunes I've written on the NY subway.
They're all definitely New York City tunes. The title echoes the underlying
rhythmic chant of 6 against 8. The scribble of the melody is a type of cadence
inspired by Charlie Parker."
Boca de Luna
- This track features Attias, solo. "It's me playing both saxophone (left
hand) and piano (right hand) - laying out the harmonic canvas to Moonmouth . .
. with erasures . . ."
Moonmouth -
"The melody is Ariadne's thread through the maze of a fully notated piano
part in 17/8. The harmony explores a sequence of superimposed triadic
inversions. It establishes the strictest grid on the album."
La Part
Maudite - Written when Attias was 20. "I had forgotten about writing this
until I found the chart in a box when moving Uptown in the summer of 2015. The
melody is written across a 6 bar additive cycle (4/4, 2/4, 5/4, 3/4, 6/4, 4/4).
The title is lifted from Georges Bataille's book of economics (translated as
'the Accursed Share') - in which he says: "The sexual act is to Time what
the tiger is to Space." That line could be the epigraph to the whole
album.
Le
Pèse-Nerfs - Title of Antonin Artaud's 1927 collection of poems, journal
fragments and essays. It can be roughly translated as "the
Nerve-Scale." "Artaud's idea of the poet-artist-actor playing on
his/her nervous system, breath, physiology as on an instrument to register and
express thought, vision, extreme states of being, is a big influence for me . .
. This revisits the material from the 'Nerve' section of Nerve and Limbo.
Rodger Lodge
- "A beautiful tune by John Hébert, one of my favorite composers of today
. . . shades of Mingus ballads, serpentine form and melody."
Dream in a
Mirror - "I was in a recording studio the day Ornette Coleman died. I have
loved and revered Ornette since I was fourteen years old. All I could do when I
heard the news was to play his 'Clergyman's Dream' over and over. This 'Dream'
is its reflection in minor."
Ombilique -
Revisits the material from the "Limbo" section of Nerve & Limbo.
Nasheet
"is a tribute in 3/4 to our great drummer by John Hébert. It explores a
similar rhythmic terrain and serpentine counterpoint to 'Dark Net', which opens
the album. I feel a deep kinship to John's playing and writing, and we all love
Nasheet!
Composer Richard Niles has released the highly acclaimed
album “BANDZILLA RISES!!!” Jazz Weekly says “BANDZILLA is hip to the bone!”
while Music Street Journal says BANDZILLA “is killer jazz fusion that just
plain rocks!…incredibly strange but also very cool.” Cherry Pop calls it “one
of the most adventurous albums I have ever heard,” while Midwest Record says,
“thinking man’s pop that also provides heat for the feet… killer stuff throughout!”
