To Celebrate the Release of
THE CLAUDIA QUINTET'S 8th Album,
- a Miniature Masterpiece of 10 Concise & Compositionally Brilliant Tunes -
Acclaimed Drummer-Composer
John Hollenbeck
Announces a
US/Canada TOUR for Summer & Fall 2016
"This is a true ensemble from top to bottom, a sonic equivalent to a hand-woven tapestry. ...Impressive." - Peter Margasak, DownBeat
THE CLAUDIA QUINTET SUPER PETITE TOUR:
SUMMER - FALL 2016
June 18
USA
8:00pm
9:30pm
201 Franklin St
San Francisco, CA
June 19
USA
8:00pm
9:30pm
201 Franklin St
San Francisco, CA
June 21
USA
8:00pm
Cornish College of the Arts
710 E Roy St
Seattle, WA 98102
June 22
USA
8:00pm
Secret Society (with Blue Cranes)
116 NE Russell St.
Portland, OR 97212
June 23
USA
9:00pm
Weller Court Plaza 3rd floor
123 Astronaut E S Onizuka St. Suite.301
Los Angeles, CA 90012
June 24
USA
7:30pm
4725 E. Mayo Boulevard
Phoenix, AZ
June 25
USA
7:30pm
1008 Wall Street
La Jolla, CA
June 29
CA
6:00pm
National Arts Centre Back Stage
Ottawa, Canada
June 30
USA
6:30pm
9:00pm
Xerox Auditorium at Xerox Plaza
Rochester, NY
October 12
CA
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
October 27
USA
Kerrytown Concerthouse
Ann Arbor, MI
STREAM/SHARE: "JFK Beagle"
@SoundCloud / @Bandcamp / @YouTube
Cat. #: Rune 427, Format: CD / Digital Download
Genre: Jazz / Post-Jazz
Release Date: June 24, 2016
Super Petite Track Listing:
1. Nightbreak (6:00)
2. JFK Beagle (3:29)
3. A-List (5:19)
4. Philly (5:14)
5. Peterborough (4:13)
6. Rose Colored Rhythm (8:24)
7. If you seek a Fox (4:16)
8. Pure Poem (1:53)
9. Newark Beagle (3:20)
10. mangold (4:12)
Recorded at Brooklyn Recording in 2015
on the birthday of Chuck D and Nana Vasconcelos.
Recorded and mixed by Andy Taub.
Assistant Engineer: Don Piper.
Music produced by John Hollenbeck.
Mastered by Brent Lambert at The Kitchen Mastering.
Design by karlssonwilker inc.
This work was made possible by the generous support of the
Doris Duke Performing Artists Awards Program.
All compositions by John Hollenbeck, Grand Blvd. Music (ASCAP/GEMA), 2016.
Acclaimed Drummer-Composer John Hollenbeck
Pens Rich, Complex Tunes for an Era of Short Attention Spans
on THE CLAUDIA QUINTET's 8th album
- SUPER PETITE -
a Potent Package that Condenses Virtuoso Playing
and a Wealth of Ideas into Ten Compact Songs
Short doesn't necessarily mean simple. Drummer-composer John Hollenbeck acrobatically explores the dichotomy between brevity and complexity on Super Petite, the eighth release by the critically acclaimed, proudly eccentric Claudia Quintet. The oxymoronic title of the band's newest album on Cuneiform Records captures the essence of its ten new compositions, which pack all of the wit and virtuosity that listeners have come to expect from the Claudia Quintet into the time frame of radio-friendly pop songs.
As always, Hollenbeck's uncategorizable music - which bridges the worlds of modern jazz and new music in surprising and inventive ways - is realized by Claudia's longstanding line-up: clarinetist/tenor saxophonist Chris Speed, vibraphonist Matt Moran, bassist Drew Gress, and accordionist Red Wierenga. Over the course of 19 years and 8 albums, the band has forged an astounding chemistry and become expert at juggling mind-boggling dexterity with inviting emotion and spirit.
Like the band's name, the title Super Petite originated as an affectionate nickname for one of the band's fans. "I thought that was a funny juxtaposition," Hollenbeck recalls, "but it also became a good frame for the album because the tunes are short but can also be grand in a way - just not in length."
The concept was both a personal challenge for Hollenbeck as a composer always dealing with a wealth of ideas, but also a reaction to a tendency in modern music toward the epic. "I'm feeling things in the opposite direction," the composer explains. "When tunes are longer, there tend to be moments when not a whole lot is happening. If you have a really short tune, the whole thing has to be compelling."
Nowhere is that principle better exemplified than in “Pure Poem,” which clocks in at under two minutes but is the most difficult piece the quintet has ever recorded. It was inspired by “Pure Poem 1007-1103” by Japanese poet Shigeru Matsui, which consists solely of sequences of Roman numerals and was used by controversial poet Kenneth Goldsmith to illustrate his theory of “Uncreative Writing.”
Hollenbeck draws inspiration from a number of diverse sources throughout Super Petite, including two unrecognizable interpretations of classic jazz – which, in its earliest years, demanded short songs due to the limitations of the day’s recording media. The mesmerizing “Nightbreak,” which opens the album, is built upon a slowed-down translation of Charlie Parker’s famous break in “Night of Tunisia,” while “Philly” transforms an infamous Philly Joe Jones lick into an exercise in bebop deconstruction.
Two variations on the same theme, “JFK Beagle” and “Newark Beagle”, were sparked by the contraband-sniffing dogs that patrol the international baggage claim area of airports. They are the living embodiment of Super Petite – utterly adorable but all business. “My problem is I want to pet the beagles but they’re so focused on that one thing,” Hollenbeck laments. “That piece began as a portrait, a combination of being really cute but staying focused. I don't know exactly what that would sound like musically, but that’s the challenge. In the end it doesn’t really matter to me if it happens or not, because it still leads me into a certain world.” In this case, the idea of international travel inspired Hollenbeck to use his passport number as a series of pitches that formed the basis for the pieces.
Similarly, “If You Seek a Fox” began life as a dig at the composer’s least favorite 24-hour cable news network, then morphed into an aural description of the eponymous animal. “A-List” began with an even more fantastical scenario, imagining the Claudia Quintet walking the red carpet. (“Think Entourage meets the Geek Squad,” as Hollenbeck wryly puts it in his liner notes.) If the tune’s urgent pulse is unlikely to attract the paparazzi, it’s nonetheless a compelling mood piece that Hollenbeck insists “feels almost like a Led Zeppelin tune in our heads.”
“Peterborough” was written in the titular New Hampshire town, where Hollenbeck spent six idyllic weeks in the fall of 2014 as a resident artist at the famed MacDowell Colony. It was there that Aaron Copland composed his Pulitzer-winning “Appalachian Spring,” which inspired the hint of Coplandesque American optimism in Hollenbeck’s combination of clarinet and vibes. The residency also provided the opportunity to explore the work of master Senegalese drummer/composer Doudou N’Diaye Rose, whose “Rose Rhythm” forms the basis for Hollenbeck’s “Rose-Colored Rhythm.”
Hollenbeck describes the MacDowell Colony as “a beautiful space where you can do whatever you want all day and no one bothers you. You can work hard all day on something, but you can also get out and ride a bike or run if you want. Then in the evening you see all these other people from different disciplines who have been doing the same thing as you, talk about what they’re doing, go to bed and do it all again the next day.”
The album concludes with “Mangolds,” a mood piece built from a slow, elongated melody line named for Hollenbeck’s favorite vegetarian restaurant in Graz, Austria, where he worked with the renowned Jazz Bigband Graz on his 2006 release Joys and Desires.
PRE-ORDER LINKS
ITUNES - AMAZON - BANDCAMP - WAYSIDE MUSIC
ARTIST WEB SITES
CLAUDIA QUINTET RELEASES ON CUNEIFORM
"The Claudia Quintet...is one of the most exciting groups in contemporary jazz. ...Each of the discs comes at you with the force of a manifesto: this band knows exactly what it is about, and the compositions charge forward with inevitability. ... the band now sounds so thoroughly integrated and seamless that you'd think it was a tenor-trumpet quintet or a 16-piece big band. ...The Claudia Quintet, inimitable, deserves to inspire." - Will Layman, PopMatters
The Claudia Quintet
September
[2013, Rune 377]
The Claudia Quintet
What is the Beautiful?
[2011, Rune 327]
The Claudia Quintet
Royal Toast (with Gary Versace)
[2010, Rune 307]
The Claudia Quintet
For
[2007, Rune 247]
The Claudia Quintet
Semi-Formal
[2005, Rune 217]
The Claudia Quintet
I, Claudia
[2004, Rune 187]
