The Atlantis Quartet was formed in the Twin Cities after guitarist Zacc Harris moved from Southern Illinois to Minneapolis in 2005 and met drummer Pete Hennnig while playing in an R&B band led by John Starkey. After working briefly as a quintet with a pianist, the group solidified their lineup with reed player Brandon Wozniak and bassist Chris Bates. They performed regularly at the Artists' Quarter and Clown Lounge, toured throughout the midwest, and performed at the Twin Cities Jazz Festival, the Iowa CityJazz Festival, as well as three clubs in New York City in 2011. Atlantis Quartet self-released three albums, followed by two more on the Shifting Paradigm record label. The group recorded a live performance at Icehouse in Minneapolis on November 24, 2014 for a planned future release. Although their records have focused on original compositions by all four members, from 2008 to 2011 the quartet performed annual Halloween shows in which they interpreted other artists' albums, including The Bridge,Head Hunters,A Love Supreme, and Houses of the Holy.
Style and reception
On Atlantis Quartet's debut album, Again, Too Soon,All About Jazz reported that they "create an aura of musical textures that sound as fresh and relevant as they did in Miles Davis' heyday" and while "they're all talented songwriters, attacking their compositions with utmost earnestness...they sound as if they're just having fun." In a review of their second album, Animal Progress,JazzTimes critic Bill Milkowski called the Atlantis Quartet "modern jazz renegades" who "shift nimbly from a punk-jazz aesthetic to ECM-ish sensitivity." Regarding the same album, City Pages writer Rick Mason described "a signature Atlantis sound that taps historic elements like swing, bop, and free jazz while referencing contemporary bits of funk, rock, and world music, then rolls it all into a cohesive bundle of kinetic energy with the visceral allure of intense fireworks and the intellectual challenge of multilayered complexity." Of their fourth album, Expansion, MPR's David Cazares wrote that they "deliver rapid-fire licks in complex rhythms and changing tempos, much like the best jazz-rock ensembles of the 1970s."
