Illusion of Choice by Michael Thomas Quartet

Michael Thomas Quartet

Illusion of Choice

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Criss Cross
UPC: 8712474141821
Catnr: CRISS 1418
Release date: 01 March 2024
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Label
Criss Cross

UPC
8712474141821

Catalogue number
CRISS 1418

Release date
01 March 2024

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

“This was a dream band to write for and play with,” alto saxophonist Michael Thomas says of Manuel Valera, Matt Brewer and Obed Calvaire, his A-list rhythm section on Illusion of Choice, his Criss Cross debut, and fourth leader album. “These musicians can play any style and sound like it’s the only thing they play. I wanted to explore these different areas and cohere them into an album, not sound like tunes stuck together for a CD. Everything was on the table. I wasn’t afraid to develop whatever ideas I came up with, and see where they went.”

The encounter gestated in spring 2023, when pianist Valera – who’d recorded Vessel (Criss-1416) in January – suggested to label proprietor Jerry Teekens that he match Thomas with this band. They met when both played with Dafnis Prieto’s big band in 2017. Soon thereafter, Valera started calling Thomas for gigs with his quintet. Thomas reciprocated, calling Valera for engagements with the Terraza Big Band (he’s co-led it with bassist Edward Perez since 2015), which recorded five of Thomas’s charts on the 2019 Grammy-nominated One Day Wonder. Also in 2019, Thomas made the live recording Event Horizon with a quartet featuring trumpeter Jason Palmer, bassist Hans Glawischnig and drummer Johnathan Blake, and the studio date Natural Habitat (with pianist Julian Shore, Glawischnig and Blake). Both showcase his original music, as did the self-released The Long Way from 2011.

Although Illusion of Choice features an assembled-for-the-occasion ensemble rather than the working bands documented on his earlier albums, Thomas, 36, considers it “the strongest thing I’ve done so far.” During the four months preceding the September 2023 recording session, Thomas generated eight originals tailored to the tonal personalities of his protean collaborators. They live up to the leader’s ballyhoo, nailing the shifting meters and intervallic challenges of his high-degree-of-difficulty pieces with panache and creative spirit

The Album was recorded September 14, 2023 at the Samurai Hotel Recording Studio, Astoria, N.Y. Recording engineer Mike Marciano did the editing, mixing and mastering at Systems Two in NY. Photography by Anna Yatskevich.

Artist(s)

Michael Thomas (alto saxophone)

Grammy-winning saxophonist, composer, and arranger Michael Thomas has been an active member of the New York City jazz community since arriving in 2011. Holding degrees from the University of Miami, New England Conservatory, and The Juilliard School, Michael has performed throughout the United States and abroad, including tours in Central and South America, Europe, Japan, and Russia. He has appeared as a sideman with Brad Mehldau, Dafnis Prieto, Nicholas Payton, Miguel Zenón, Etienne Charles, and Jason Palmer, and Michael’s talents can be heard on over 30 recordings. According to the New York Times, Michael writes “energetic, tuneful music for both combos and large ensembles”, and All About Jazz describes his playing as “a particular revelation, as he provides superb, well-crafted...

Michael has been commissioned by school and professional ensembles throughout the United States and abroad, and he is currently a member of the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop in New York City. Since 2015, Michael has co-lead the Terraza Big Band, and the ensemble’s GRAMMY-nominated debut One Day Wonder, was released in May 2019 on Outside In Music. Michael’s work has been recognized by DownBeat magazine as well as the Keep an Eye competition in Amsterdam, NL, and in 2020 he was chosen by the USAF Airmen of Note as the winner of the Sammy Nestico Award. Michael also participated in the New York Youth Symphony’s First Music commission series in 2016, and he continues to work as an arranger and orchestrator for clients around the world. In addition to his work as a big band composer, Michael regularly leads his quartet, releasing the two-CD live album Event Horizon in May 2020 on Giant Step Arts. His follow up studio recording, Natural Habitat, was released in March 2021 on Sunnyside Records.

Since September 2018, Michael has been a faculty member at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music as an Artist Teacher of jazz saxophone in the Jackie McLean Jazz Studies Institute.

Michael is a Boston Sax Shop performing artist.

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Matt Brewer (double bass)

Matt Brewer was born in Oklahoma City but spent most of his youth in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Born into a musical family, Matt was surrounded by music from an early age, both his father and grandfather being jazz musicians, and his mother an avid music lover and radio DJ (who, even before Matt was born, would play classic jazz albums for him). After graduating from the Interlochen Arts Academy, Matt attended the inagural class of The Juilliard Jazz Program and studied with bassists Rodney Whitaker and Ben Wolfe. After spending two years at Juilliard he decided to leave school to make time for his busy touring schedule. Since then he has worked with artists such as Greg Osby, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Lee Konitz, David Sanchez, Terence Blanchard, Antonio Sanchez, Vijay Iyer, Adam Rogers, Steve Coleman, Dave Binney, Aaron Parks, Jeff “Tain” Watts, and many others. He recently recorded his second album as a leader on the Criss Cross Jazz label. He is an adjunct faculty member at The New School, and has been a frequent guest artist/teacher at the Banff Center.

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Obed Calvaire (drums)

Manuel Valera (piano)

Manuel Valera advises his students at New York University to write music every day. “I tell them that composition is essentially another instrument – the more you practice, the better you get at it,” says the 42-year-old piano master, who, by his count, has generated some 200 recorded pieces since he entered the fray in the early aughts.
Vessel, Valera’s second album for Criss Cross, showcases eight recent works, each “honoring a different person who’s influenced my music.” Valera made it last December, nine years after presenting another eight originals on In Motion [Criss-Cross 1372] which featured a slamming iteration of his New Cuban Express ensemble, whose eponymous first CD had earned a 2013 Grammy nomination for “Best Latin Jazz Album.” The pieces on that straight-eighth oriented session mixed elements from various Afro-Cuban dialects with postbop, fusion jazz, funk and R&B, incorporating intricate beat modulation, odd meters, and intriguing ensemble color.
Valera’s preternatural ability to navigate multiple dialects may seem equivalently mysterious to his peers and colleagues. “I want to play this music live with these cats,” he says. “We can play both this way and in the style of New Cuban Express.” Hopefully, the sound of Vessel is an opening salvo, not a one-off.

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Composer(s)

Michael Thomas (alto saxophone)

Since September 2018, Michael has been a faculty member at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music as an Artist Teacher of jazz saxophone in the Jackie McLean Jazz Studies Institute.

Michael is a Boston Sax Shop performing artist.

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