Naïve: NV816711 
http://www.naive.fr/#/work/crouch-touch-engage

* Médéric Collignon: bugle, saxhorn alto, voix
* Laurent Dehors: saxophone ténor, clarinette basse, cornemuse
* Philippe Sellam: saxophone alto
* Thomas de Pourquery: saxophone alto
* François Thuillier: saxhorn basse, tuba basse
* Claude Tchamitchian: contrebasse
* Eric Echampard: batterie
* François Verly: percussions
* Andy Emler: piano, compositions et direction

Homepage:
~~~~~~~~~ 
http://www.andyemler.com/


This album was voted one of the best French jazz albums of 2009, receiving two
prestigious awards. Andy Emler and his quartet will also be appearing at a week
of French Jazz at the King’s Place in London in May 2010. 
http://www.discovery-records.com/product-ST62071/Andy-Emler-Mega-Octet.htm


Reviews:
~~~~~~~~ 
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=34152

By Jean-Marc Gelin

With Crouch, Touch, Engage, Andy Elmer is back. He is one of the most
influential pianist/composers to have appeared on the French scene in the last
15 years, having explored all the possible links between jazz and rock. He has
collaborated with some major jazz artists, including (Michel Portal, François
Jeanneau, Trilok Gurtu and the late Woody Shaw), but it is his work with large
orchestras—both at the beginning of his career in 1986 with the National Jazz
Orchestra and, more recently, at the heart of the WDR—which gave him a taste for
writing on a large scale.

Brimming with ideas, Emler created his Megaoctet in 1988, which has gone from
strength to strength ever since, picking up a host of major awards including
Django d'Or (1992) and the Victoires du Jazz (2005) album of the year award for
Dreams in Tune (Nocturne Jazz, 2004). He has also garnered universal praise from
the French press following the release of West in Peace (Nocturne, 2007), for
which he was also awarded the Django d'Or and Jazz Academy prize. All this is
proof that the Megaoctet is universally acknowledged as remarkable by those at
the heart of the French jazz scene.

Emler has created a kind of jazz/rock opera, constructing and deconstructing his
compositions accordingly. The Megaoctet excels in furious unison work, visceral
exaltations and moments of sheer calm; a passionate, loving session. This
effervescent fusion echoes a jungle of sound that Duke Ellington and Charles
Mingus might have created with Frank Zappa, had they had the opportunity to
collaborate with each other. The music avoids sticking to rigid linear
structure, instead written by Emler as a suite of movements, as on "Mail to
Elise." Solos are equally distributed amongst group members—who sound like a big
band despite being only a nonet. Each player marries humor and self-deprecation,
under the guidance of the ever-surprising cornetist Mederic Collignon or altoist
Thomas de Pourquery, who sings like a crooner. The writing is both deep and
extremely expressive.

A DVD released by Triton filmed in a little Parisian club in September 2008
provides a glimpse of this high energy group. Taken from many angles with some
hot close-ups, the film demonstrates the demands of this inventive music, as it
revisits the spirit of Ellington and Mingus.


Andy EMLER MEGAOCTET : “Crouch, Touch, Engage” **** (fr) 
http://www.lesdnj.com/article-34621533.html

ANDY EMLER MEGAOCTET – “CROUCH, TOUCH, ENGAGE” (es) 
http://distritojazz.blogspot.com/2009/10/andy-emler-megaoctet-crouch-touch.html