Suggested Donation $15 (students $10))

David Berkman, piano, Michael Attias, alto saxophone.

David Berman Biography

David Berkman has been an essential part of the New York jazz scene for over 30 years, as a creative and swinging voice on the piano and as a gifted composer, arranger and bandleader.  Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, he currently divides his time between teaching in N.Y. and performing with world-renowned jazz artists at home and abroad. Berkman has performed with numerous jazz luminaries including Sonny Stitt, Tom Harrell, Brian Blade, the Vanguard Orchestra, Cecil McBee, Dave Douglas and Chris Potter. His 10 recordings as a leader have appeared on numerous “Critic’s Best” lists. Berkman is a tenured professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music, C.U.N.Y. in New York and has published three books on jazz with Sher Music Publishing which are used in jazz schools worldwide.

Michaël Attias Bio

Michaël Attias has earned a reputation as one of the most questing and keenly collaborative figures on the 21st-century New York jazz scene, with a background and outlook that makes “him an emphatically cosmopolitan saxophonist and composer,” according to The New York Times. Migrations spanning North Africa, the Middle East, Western Europe and the American Midwest ultimately brought Attias to New York City in 1994, where he continues to pursue his muse as improviser, composer and leader of multiple bands. On the alto saxophone, Attias offers a tone of piquant lyricism, while his sound on the baritone horn blends fluency with grit. His compositions are serpentine and darkly alluring, with melodies fit to charm snakes; the rhythms offer a surprise at every turn, the textures as sensual as night. The Village Voice has described Attias’ music-making this way: “perpetually shifting tunes, richness of timbre and a singular personality – you can almost see his music expanding and contracting.”

Attias is readying the third album – the beautifully combustible Live in Greenwich Village – for release by Renku, the saxophonist’s telepathic cooperative with two longstanding kindred spirits: bassist John Hébert and drummer Satoshi Takeishi. Attias also leads the potent quintet Spun Tree (featuring trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist Matt Mitchell, bassist Sean Conly and drummer Tom Rainey), which released its first, eponymous album via Clean Feed in 2012. Attias has already written a new book of music for Spun Tree. In addition, the saxophonist leads the Michaël Attias Quartet (with Hébert, pianist Aruan Ortiz and drummer Nasheet Waits). Another of Attias’ pursuits is a solo saxophone project – I’s – that sees him weave the keens and whispers of his alto through the resonance of well-placed piano chords, making music as a subtly intense one-man band. That’s not to mention his experience as a sideman for artists from Anthony Braxton and Paul Motian to Anthony Coleman and Tony Malaby, as well as his extensive work as a composer for the theatre. No matter the setting, All About Jazz was right when it said, “Attias plays with authority and passion.”