$20 / 7pm doors / 7:30 start / seated
Drawing on years of criss-cross in many ballrooms, tonight will be this special trio's second dance. Don't miss it!
Michaëal Attias - Alto & C-Soprano Saxophones
Francisco Mela - Drums
Kris Davis - Piano
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 make 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 bandleader. The Village Voice described Attias’ music-making as, “perpetually shifting tunes, richness of timbre and a singular personality—you can almost see his music expanding and contracting.” As a leader, he has released eight albums, including the 2019 Out Of Your Head release échos la nuit(featuring Attias solo on alto saxophone and piano), and the 2017 Clean Feed debut of Attias’ Nerve Dance quartet. As a sideman, he has performed and recorded alongside some of today’s most original and compelling musicians, luminaries such as Anthony Braxton, Paul Motian, Oliver Lake, Anthony Coleman, Ralph Alessi, Tony Malaby, Kris Davis, Andy Milne, Fay Victor and a host of others. In New York City, he has performed at the Village Vanguard, the Jazz Gallery, Roulette, the Stone, Dizzy’s Coca Cola, the Winter Jazz Festival and the Vision Festival – as well and in countless other festivals, clubs and performance spaces around the globe.
Kris Davis
is a Grammy Award–winning pianist and composer described by The New York Times as a beacon for “deciding where to hear jazz [in New York] on a given night.” Widely recognized for her singular compositional voice, rhythmic approach, and distinctive harmonic language, Davis blends elements of jazz, groove, and contemporary classical music to create a sound that has established her as one of the most influential creative voices and collaborators in contemporary jazz. She has released 27 recordings as a leader or co-leader and has collaborated with artists including Terri Lyne Carrington, Dave Holland, John Zorn, Craig Taborn, Ingrid Laubrock, Tyshawn Sorey, and esperanza spalding. Davis was named a 2021 Doris Duke Artist and has been voted Pianist of the Year in the DownBeat Critics poll in 2020, 2022, 2025 and 2026. She serves as Associate Program Director of Creative Development at the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice and Professor of Piano and Composition at The Musik Academie Jazzcampus in Basel, Switzerland. Davis is a Steinway Artist.
Francisco Mela
was born in Bayamo, Cuba. He moved to Boston in 2000 to pursue a degree at Berklee College of Music and, quickly thereafter, the faculty recognized that Mela had much to offer students and promptly hired him to teach at the school. Mela rapidly made a name for himself on the Boston scene, becoming the house drummer at the legendary Wally’s Café Jazz Club. It was at Wally’s that Mela began developing a concept for his own band, one that would feature the sounds of modern jazz with the traditional music he grew up with in Cuba.
In 2009, he was tapped by jazz legend McCoy Tyner to join his trio. Said Tyner of his new drummer, “Mela is just a fantastic player. He has his own style and his own sound, which is what I look for in a drummer.” Mela now plays every night at the Lilypad with The Fringe, and many other places around Boston.