There are moments—and instruments—that change everything. If the saxophone-double bass-drums trio is an institution in the history of jazz, a fertile ground for exploration and freedom, a spark can ignite a process of expanding the spectrum of sonic possibilities and elevating the music to another level. The inclusion of the piano makes “La Grande Crue,” the fourth album by The Attic trio, a necessarily different record from its predecessors, bringing an entirely new dimension to the group’s music in harmonic and melodic terms. Eve Risser, a French pianist and an absolutely essential figure in the creative music of our time, commands a richly nuanced lexicon and exceptional versatility in any context—from solo to orchestra, including trio and quartet.
“The mere fact of incorporating a piano into the equations of improvisation completely changes the kind of energy released by the music, for us and for the listeners,” saxophonist Rodrigo Amado explains to jazz.pt. That was precisely the goal. “We went into the studio without any prior discussion about what we were going to do. The musical communication, as we imagined, was immediate. And Eve’s music acted as a true ‘flood’ of the trio’s music,” he emphasizes. Nothing would ever be the same again, to the point of astonishing the saxophonist himself with how, from then on, he began constructing his own discourse. “I was quite surprised by my language, with a certain harmonic sophistication I had not previously identified in my phrasing.”
This album is also where the group achieves a very particular level of maturity: “I feel this work as our point of maturity, in the sense that we have reached a certain creative coherence and stability, and now we can experiment even more, musically and in organizing alternative formations,” he states. In The Attic trio, the saxophonist—an inescapable name in the most stimulating jazz being made in Portugal and the most internationally recognized national musician in these realms today, constantly in motion—is joined by Gonçalo Almeida, a double bassist and sonic strategist based in the Netherlands, dividing his time among projects like Albatre, The Selva, Ritual Habitual, Spinifex, and Lama, and Dutch drummer Onno Govaert, who also has strong ties to the Portuguese scene through collaborations with Hugo Costa, Luís Vicente, and Marcelo dos Reis. The trio’s self-titled debut in 2017, still with Marco Franco on drums, was an auroral record, yet no less interesting or consistent. It was followed by Summer Bummer in 2019, featuring the current lineup in a live recording at the festival of the same name held in Antwerp, Belgium, and Love Ghosts, recorded in January 2020, just before the pandemic turned our world upside down.
After two magnificent albums—the 2023 debut of The Bridge quartet with Alexander Von Schlippenbach, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, and Gerry Hemingway in Beyond the Margins, and The Invisible in 2024 alongside Dirk Serries and Andrew Lisle—La Grande Crue, recorded by André Fernandes at Timbuktu studios at the end of July 2023 and mixed by Joaquim Monte and Amado himself, features four improvisations lasting between 10 and 21 minutes, credited to the quartet.
A special mention goes to the wonderful painting by Manuel Amado, the saxophonist’s father and a major figure in 20th-century Portuguese visual arts. The painting is part of A Grande Cheia (The Great Flood), a series of 13 works painted in 1996 and first exhibited at the Calouste Gulbenkian Cultural Center in Paris in 2001. That same year, poet Nuno Júdice wrote a book of poems in dialogue with this series, titled Jogo de Reflexos (Game of Reflections), published in a bilingual edition by Éditions Chandeigne (Paris, 2001). One of these poems, Ângulo (Angle), is reproduced in the liner notes of La Grande Crue:
A reflection of light dies in the summer waters. The algae proliferate in its texture, drinking the window’s last glow. The room encloses me in a white architecture. I breathe a rhythm of drowned sheets. An inner voice announces oval metrics, which I repeat in the monotonous flow of the verse. This light, however, has the structure of melancholy.
The collaboration with the pianist—someone who had long been on the trio’s radar—introduced, as already noted, a myriad of new solutions to the group’s sound, elevating it to a different level. “Eve is an extraordinary pianist,” emphasizes Rodrigo Amado, citing the trio album she recorded with bassist Benjamin Duboc and drummer Edward Perraud, En Corps – Generation (2017), as well as the Red Desert Orchestra’s Eurythmia, released by Portuguese label Clean Feed in 2022. “She can uniquely incorporate completely abstract, purely sonic cells into a more conventional improvisational discourse, but no less interesting for it,” the saxophonist explains. When they learned that Eve Risser would be performing at Jazz em Agosto at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the idea of initiating a collaboration immediately began to take shape. “Gonçalo already knew her reasonably well, and Eve agreed right away.”
The trio’s creative modus operandi remained the same—total improvisation. “We all entered a state of total immersion and maximum concentration,” says Amado, who appears here in a state of grace: powerful yet sensitive, shuffling the deck and dealing again, never imposing himself but always seeking to discover more about himself and his relationships with the musicians he judiciously selects for his groups. Gonçalo Almeida and Onno Govaert are monumental musicians who continuously add ideas and propose new paths in an organic, safety-net-free creative interplay nurtured by long-standing complicity.
In the opening track, Corps, the first sounds come from Almeida’s double bass, which, using the bow, immediately creates a solemn atmosphere; the hyper-delicate drums join in, Risser delves into her instrument’s innermost workings, and Amado plays with clarity and a remarkable sense of space. The piece evolves in a gradual crescendo of intensity, with the four musicians interweaving their lines. There’s a section where the saxophone-double bass-drums trio showcases telepathic interaction; at one point, the piano takes on a pivotal role, with very physical notes, and the intensity levels rise considerably. The saxophonist responds with high-octane sound bursts, which progressively allow silence to seep in, leading to a peaceful conclusion.
Peau brings a somewhat more jazz-like ambiance, largely driven by the way Amado conducts the proceedings—breathing and interactive, proacting and reacting; the piano contributes sparse yet decisive chords, and the rhythm section continues to astonish with its intricate clockwork. Risser once again takes center stage, showcasing her angular pianism. Rodrigo Amado resumes with short phrases, which the pianist contrasts with crystalline notes. The piece ends on a lamenting and unsettling note.
Phrase begins as a tour de force for Risser to thoroughly explore her instrument; the other musicians join in—featuring a superb solo by Govaert—and the meters approach the red. The saxophonist introduces a melodic line to which the piano responds sensitively. The piece takes on a somewhat more chamber-like character, with all four instruments engaging in multilayered games of restraint, respecting spaces yet not hesitating to challenge one another. Double bass and drums once again demonstrate their tight-knit tandem. Amado delivers focused, precise phrasing, skillfully playing with intensity levels. The quartet simmers in different geometries until reaching a climax.
Finally, Pierre begins with a nocturnal and mysterious tone (who is Pierre?). The saxophonist whispers, summoning diverse sounds; Almeida returns to the bow with surprising effects, and Govaert plays with astonishing sensitivity. Risser explores various techniques, bringing a palette of harmonic elements that establish multiple levels of articulation with the other instruments. The saxophonist flares up and exits, leaving the piano-double bass-drums trio to boil over; upon reentering, he delivers a soberly majestic discourse, stretching the energy levels to their limit before everything dissolves into silence.
La Grande Crue has the rare ability to genuinely challenge us, to shift our understanding of what music should be, and to change the way we relate to the other side—the creative side of what we hear. It makes us, on this side, active participants in the creative process. And thus, flooded by beauty, it reconciles us with the world.
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