Michel Attenoux was a saxophonist and bandleader in the traditional and swing styles who worked in Paris from the early 1950s until the 1980s. He was born in the 4th arrondissement of Paris on June 14, 1930, and began on piano before turning to the soprano saxophone, the instrument on most of his records; he added the alto saxophone around 1955, and German-language reference works also list occasional clarinet. He formed his own band in 1951, and German and Dutch Wikipedia place it at the Kentucky Club in Paris and note earlier spells in the orchestras of Pierre Atlan and Jean-Christophe Averty. His first records are two 78 rpm singles for the Swing label in 1952, "My Ideal" and "Perles de cristal" (SW. 402) and "Southern Sunset" and "Down in Honky Tonk Town" (SW. 413), with Gérard Badini on clarinet, André Persiany on piano, Benny Vasseur on trombone and Gilles Thibaut on trumpet.

In 1953 his orchestra became the house band at Metro Jazz, a Paris club later renamed Les Trois Mailletz, where it played alongside Sidney Bechet and the New Orleans trombonist Jimmy Archey. The Paris sessions of those years were collected on the Gitanes reissue Classic Jazz at Saint-Germain-des-Prés: he plays soprano saxophone behind the clarinetist Albert Nicholas on four tracks recorded in March 1954, and leads the band on the six titles Archey recorded with it at the Magellan studio on January 27, 1955, first issued as a Barclay 10-inch LP. A radio broadcast of May 7, 1954 from Brussels, with Bechet fronting Attenoux's orchestra, came out in 1984 as Concert inédit, Volume 2, and in 1958 he played soprano saxophone in Bechet's band at the Vieux Colombier in Juan-les-Pins.

Barclay gave him a long run of records of his own. A 10-inch LP of 1955 with Georges Arvanitas (piano), Badini, Claude Gousset (trombone), Louis Henry (trumpet), Guy Pedersen (bass) and François Galépidès (drums) was followed by Vive le jazz ! (1956), Music to Chase the Blues Away (recorded in Paris in March 1956 and issued on Felsted), the 1957 EP Les Oignons, named for Bechet's tune, and Musique pour salle de garde (1959). In 1955 he is also the soprano saxophonist on a Barclay EP billed to the Lionel Hampton Quartet featuring Michel Attenoux, with Lionel Hampton on vibraphone and the drummer Moustache. In 1960 he made two records in Stuttgart: Michel Attenoux Plays Dixieland, taped at the Liederhalle on May 15 with a German traditional-jazz band that included the soprano saxophonist Dieter Antritter, and Jazztime Paris, recorded on October 2 with André Persiany (piano), Roland Lobligeois (bass), Charles Saudrais (drums) and the vibraphonist Géo Daly. French Wikipedia adds that he fronted Les Gros Minets with Moustache and Géo Daly, a band that appeared often on French television variety shows in the 1960s, and Discogs lists him on a 1969 Decca LP shared with the bandleader Marc Laferrière.

The 1970s brought more leader dates and American partners. Jazz Group (Promophone, 1974) has him on alto saxophone with the tenor saxophonist André Villeger, Claude Gousset (trombone and arrangements) and Patrick Artero (trumpet). With the same rhythm section, Gousset and Artero he recorded an album with the tenor saxophonist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, first issued in 1975 on Mahogany as What's New ? and reissued on CD as Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis With Michel Attenoux (Storyville, 1992). English Wikipedia places his sextet at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1975 and lists him on trombonist Al Grey's Grey's Mood, and German and Dutch Wikipedia add a 1976 recording with Lionel Hampton's all-stars. On September 15 and 16, 1977 he was recorded live at the Méridien hotel in Paris with Géo Daly, on an album billed as presented by Moustache.

In 1978 he formed Les Petits Français with Moustache, the clarinetist Marcel Zanini and the trombonist François Guin, a group that recorded jazz versions of songs by Georges Brassens. Brassens joined them for the 1979 Philips sessions, with American guests including Joe Newman, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Cat Anderson and Dorothy Donegan, and Attenoux is credited as arranger on the LP Élégie à un rat de cave (Philips 9101 260) and on the single "P... de toi". In 1982 the Académie du Jazz gave him an honorary Prix Sidney Bechet, the traditional-jazz prize that went that year to Daniel Huck. He passed away in Laval, in western France, on April 24, 1988, at 57.

Attenoux was a Bechet-school soprano saxophonist whose band worked the repertoire of New Orleans and swing: Bechet's "Les Oignons" and "Petite Fleur", "Tiger Rag", "Flying Home" and Ellington titles such as "The Mooche" and "Creole Love Call". The critic Scott Yanow, writing of the Davis album, compared his playing to that of Tab Smith and Johnny Hodges. He also had a lighter, commercial side: the Barclay records of the 1950s set "La Madelon" and "Rock Around the Clock" in a Dixieland frame and "Les Oignons" recurs on his 1957 EP, his 1959 Bechet tribute and his 1976 LP, and he backed popular singers on Paris pop records of 1960. His reputation rests on the Paris sessions with Bechet, Archey and Nicholas, the records with visiting Americans such as Hampton and Davis, and the Brassens recordings, and the Académie du Jazz recognised it with an honorary prize in 1982.