New York @ Night: January 2010

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Michaël 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 Barbès (Dec. 3), 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 Hebert’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. — David R. Adler

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It’s become tradition at Tribeca Performing Arts Center to present each year’s finalists in the Thelonious Monk Competition. Seeing as the 2009 title went to bassist Ben Williams, it was he who kicked off the “Monk In Motion” series (Dec. 5), leading a quintet called Sound Effect. From the opening vamp of Woody Shaw’s “Moontrane,” Williams favored a sound steeped in funk, reflecting his membership in Stefon Harris’ Blackout and his roots in the go-go sound of his native Washington, DC. Drummer Obed Calvaire relished the stuff, moving effortlessly from deep soul to deep swing. Pianist Aaron Goldberg supplied scads of harmonic information and loosed an especially brutal, poetically structured solo on Williams’ bossa-derived “November.” The melodies got their strength from alto/soprano saxophonist Jaleel Shaw and guitarist Matt Stevens, who brought tight unisons and singing harmonies into relief on “The Dawn of a New Day” (based on a “Poinciana” beat) and Wayne Shorter’s “Deluge,” played with a satisfying faithfulness to the 1964 original. Williams, a fast-thinking and melodic soloist, featured himself on these and the closing James Brown homage “Mr. Dynamite,” switching to his bow for tartly bluesy phrases on the latter. Alas, Buster Williams’ “Christina” was cluttered and overdone, with no piano solo where it could have helped. But the minor-key waltz arrangement of Michael Jackson’s “Little Susie” caught fire. — DA