"On Music for the Millennium," notes saxophonist and composer Ralph Simon, about his second recording for the Postcards label which he co-founded in 1993, "I wanted to try to effect the remarriage of acoustic and electric music and explore timbre, the fourth dimension of future jazz." The CD features Simon on soprano saxophone and breath-controlled synthesizers, engaging in riveting duets, trios, quartets, and larger ensembles with pianist Paul Bley, bassist Gary Peacock, trombonist Julian Priester, drummer Bruce Ditmas, pianist Alan Pasqua, vibraphonist Jeff Berman, percussionist Tom Beyer, and harpist Elizabeth Panzer.

In Simon's upper Manhattan childhood, the Magic Club bar adjoined the fabled Audubon Ballroom, where the greatest artists of postwar bcbop, R&B, and doo-wop regularly performed. "It was truly a magic club of geniuses of music, heart, and soul," he explains, "and when I learned in 1991 that the Ballroom would be torn down, a friend and I took pictures of that culturally hallowed building. My thanks go to the magic club of world-class improvisers who put their unique sound alchemies at the service of my music concepts for Music for the Millennium." Together, the members of this new Magic Club bring their vocabulary of genius to a set of Simon's original compositions (as well as "Blue in Green" and Keith Jarrett's "Windsong") that explores his extensive background in jazz, contemporary classical, and free improvisation.

It was Paul Bley who inspired Simon to begin composing. He later played piano on Time Being, Simon's 1981 debut album (Gramavision), which Jazz Hot hailed as "a harmonious musical success which one doesn't tire of listening to". Simon also credits his experience with Bley while the pianist was founding the IAI label with sparking his own interest in creating a jazz label -- which he has now done with Postcards, Inc., .for which he serves as A&R director and exclusive producer. "I used the same approach in choosing the players who would join me in Music for the Millennium as I've used in helping choose all of Postcards's band leaders and sidemen," notes Simon. "My question always is: which players can breathe such vivid personality into the music of the project at hand that their presence on the recording becomes a virtual necessity, as if it were musically preordained? I believe that the music of the Magic Club beautifully validates this premise, upon which these musicians were chosen."