Fully Altered Media » Cuneiform Records

John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet +1 Performs West Coast Debuts of Songs From What Is The Beautiful?

admin — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 03:08:42 +0000

Project Commissioned by the University of Rochester’s
Rare Books and Special Collections Department
for the 100th Birthday Celebration of Poet / Visual Artist Kenneth Patchen

UPCOMING SHOWS:

The Claudia Quintet +1
*with special guest Theo Bleckman

February 27 - Yoshi’s, San Francisco, CA (link)
February 28 - Blue Whale, Los Angeles, CA (link)
February 29 - Cal State Fullerton, CA (link)
March 1 - Cal State Fullerton, CA (link) *
March 2 - 560 Music Center, St. Louis, MO (link)

* Cal State Fullerton Jazz Ensembles with John Hollenbeck & Theo Bleckmann

YEAR END LISTS

Ranked in Best Songs of 2011, New York Times

Ranked in the 2011 AllAboutJazz.com Best Releases of 2011

Ranked #21 in the 2011 JazzTimes Critics Poll

Ranked #7 in the Best Jazz CDs of the Year, GoErie.com

Ranked #4 in the Best Jazz Recordings of 2011, The Big City

Praise for What Is the Beautiful?

“With the singer Kurt Elling reading some texts, and Theo Bleckmann singing others, Mr. Hollenbeck respects how the poems begin, modulate and end. As much as possible, he has let the poems write the music for him.”

- Ben Ratliff, New York Times

“Though Hollenbeck’s arrangements are as evocative as ever in crafting a lush maze of percussion, accordion and woodwinds, Patchen’s words remain on equal footing with the help of Theo Bleckmann and Kurt Elling.”

- Chris Barton, LA Times

“A unique merger of evocative poetry and avant-garde jazz…whose emotional resonance is as profound as the intricate formal elements that support it.”
- Troy Collins, All About Jazz

“…the group’s most compelling album to date.”
- Daniel Spicer, BBC

“Spellbinding.”
- Michael J. West, Washington City Paper

“from sublime accessibility to keening experimentalism…”
- Doug Simpson, Audiophile Audition

”John Hollenbeck masterfully sets Patchen’s evocative works to decidedly modern music. His band, The Claudia Quintet, plays them beautifully.”
-Ron Netsky, Rochester City Newspaper

“Soon it will/Be showtime again,” recites Kurt Elling at the outset of The Claudia Quintet’s sixth CD, What Is the Beautiful? “Somebody will paint beautiful faces all over the sky.”

The sentiment expressed by those lines, penned by poet/visual artist Kenneth Patchen, captures something of the anticipation proffered by the release of a new Claudia album. Bandleader/percussionist John Hollenbeck’s evocative, richly luminescent compositions definitely possess the suggestive power to encourage listeners to look heavenward, searching for those faces in the sky.

Richard Peek, director of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Rochester Libraries, describes Patchen’s body of work as one that “deﬁes easy categorization and is undeniably his own.” Perhaps in that one statement, more than in any aesthetic choice or thematic material, we can find the common ground between poet and composer.

Most of the material on What Is the Beautiful? was commissioned by the University of Rochester for its 100th birthday celebration of Patchen in 2011. Not particularly conversant with the poet’s work, Hollenbeck began a crash course and found himself immediately drawn to the breadth of Patchen’s themes.

Born in 1911, Patchen was an avant-gardist with strong pacifist leanings. His work bears an obvious kinship with the Beats, though he dwelt on the periphery of that scene, never one to align himself with any movement or affiliation. He was an early experimenter in the fusion of jazz and poetry, often reciting his work against a bebop backdrop (slyly alluded to here in the eccentric swing during the opening moments of “Showtime”). A debilitating back injury kept him away from public engagements for most of his life, and he spent more than a decade bedridden before his death in 1972.

Hollenbeck immediately thought of singer Kurt Elling to give voice to these poems – wholly unaware that Elling is something of a Patchen aficionado. “Kurt is a scholar with this stuff,” Hollenbeck says. “He knew Patchen and knew exactly what to do. He’s amazing.”

Vocalist Theo Bleckmann, probably Hollenbeck’s most frequent collaborator, was also enlisted to lend a dreamier, more song-like atmosphere to several of the poems. “Theo has a very gentle, open, vulnerable approach,” Hollenbeck says. He uses that voice to stunning effect on “The Snow Is Deep On the Ground,” which conjures the image of swirling snow and the crystalline hush of a fresh snowfall on a still morning.

As on their previous CD, Royal Toast, the Claudia Quintet is again supplemented by a +1, in this case Philadelphia-based pianist Matt Mitchell, a member of saxophonist Tim Berne’s Adobe Probe who has collaborated with the likes of Ravi Coltrane, Ralph Alessi, Mark Helias, Ari Hoenig and Josh Roseman. His virtuosity and spontaneity make him a perfect fit with the long-running core group – Hollenbeck on drums, Drew Gress (Tim Berne, Ravi Coltrane, Fred Hersch) on bass, Matt Moran (Slavic Soul Party, Mat Maneri, Ellery Eskelin) on vibraphone, Ted Reichman (Anthony Braxton, Marc Ribot, Paul Simon) on accordion, and Chris Speed (Bloodcount, Yeah No, Human Feel) on clarinet and tenor sax.

Fully Altered Media – 2010: The Year In Review

Matt — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:01:34 +0000

Dear Friends & Colleagues:

We realize we’re a little late to the punch, but if you haven’t already put the finishing touches on your 2010 year-end lists for jazz or other eclectic non-mainstream music, please consider the wonderful projects we’ve worked on in one way or another this past year.   I would like to acknowledge all of you in the media and the industry for helping us make 2010 another successful year for Fully Altered Media. And of course we couldn’t do it without our amazing clients, listed below.   I would also like to especially acknowledge former staffer Stephen Buono, all-around utility man Nick Venti and my new assistant Maribel Gil, who recently joined the Fully Altered team part-time, as well as day-to-day helpers Russ Flynn, Andy McGhie and Will Martina.

If you haven’t yet finished your year-end Top 10 or Top 20 or Top 50 lists, please consider the albums below. I hope that my eclecticism and open ears will continue to show through in the music we send your way.

To a Healthy & Productive 2011 and Beyond,
Matt Merewitz & Maribel Gil

Here are all the records we worked in 2010 for your consideration (in chronological order by release date):

Dave Rempis
& Frank Rosaly
Cyrillic
(482 Music)

Colorist
A Square White Lie
(482 Music)

Sam Sadigursky
The Words Project
III: Miniatures
(New Amsterdam)

Steve Colson Trio
The Untarnished
Dream
(Silver Sphinx)

Thomas Savy
French Suite
(Plus Loin)

Dan Weiss Trio
Timshel
(Sunnyside)

Allison Miller
BOOM TIC BOOM
(Foxhaven)

Nels Cline Singers
Initiate
(Cryptogramophone)

Adam Rudolph
& Ralph Jones
Yeyi
(Meta)

Adam Rudolph
& Yusef Lateef
Towards the
Unknown
(Meta)

Mike Reed’s
People, Places
& Things
Stories &
Negotiations
(482 Music)

Jacky Terrason
Push
(Concord)

The Claudia
Quintet
Royal Toast
(Cuneiform)

Pete Robbins
sILENT Z – Live
(Hate Laugh Music)

Ideal Bread
Transmit: Vol. 2 of
the Music of
Steve Lacy
(Cuneiform)

David Weiss &
Point of Departure
Snuck in
(Sunnyside)

Rafi Malkiel
Water
(Tzadik)

Barry Harris
Live in Rennes
(Plus Loin)

Billy Bang
Prayer for Peace
(TUM)

Vijay Iyer
Solo
(ACT)

Blue Cranes
Observatories
(Self-released)

Eddie Gomez
& Cesarius Alvim
Forever
(Plus Loin)

Rudresh
Mahanthappa
& Bunky Green
Apex
(Pi)

Kellylee Evans
Nina
(Plus Loin)

Nels Cline
DIRTY BABY
(Cryptogramophone)

Mike Reed’s Loose
Assembly Featuring
Roscoe Mitchell
Empathetic Parts
(482 Music)

Scott Amendola Trio
Lift
(Sazi)

Dan Tepfer
Five Pedals Deep
(Sunnyside)

The Dymaxion
Quartet
Sympathetic
Vibrations
(Self-released)

Jason Stein’s
Locksmith Isidore
Three Kinds of
Happiness
(Not Two)

Jerome Sabbagh
I Will Follow You
(Bee Jazz)

Look for some excellent new projects for January and beyond from:

•   Trumpeter Taylor Haskins to release new album Recombination on Nineteen-Eight Records in February 2011
•   Debut album, Steampunk Serenade by Honey Ear Trio Featuring Erik Lawrence, Rene Hart & Allison Miller to be released in March 2011
•   & much much more

For more information, contact Matt Merewitz at Fully Altered Media/
matt@fullyaltered.com / 215-629-6155

The Claudia Quintet Releases 5th Album, “Royal Toast” on Cuneiform Records May 18, 2010

Matt — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:02:47 +0000

Composer/Drummer John Hollenbeck Continues Prolific Recording Period
With Fifth Claudia Quintet Album, Royal Toast,
Due May 18, 2010 on Cuneiform Records

cover art for Royal Toast

On their fifth CD, Royal Toast, The Claudia Quintet raise a glass in salute to their regal muse with a set of new music fit for a king – albeit one with more refined tastes and open mind than your average monarch.

If a round table seems a wholly appropriate setting for this egalitarian ensemble (with an extra place setting this time out), theirs is as much Algonquin as Camelot, renowned for their sophisticated wit as well as their sharply-honed musical jousting.

As composer/leader John Hollenbeck points out, the title might also sound a bit “silly” – but there’s something in its odd incongruity that exemplifies the band’s one-of-a-kind sound.

“I like toast,” Hollenbeck explains with characteristically laconic humor, “and I noticed that if you put ‘royal’ in front of something, it seems elevated.”

The Claudia Quintet has similarly been finding the majestic in the mundane (or vice versa) for more than a dozen years. Nowhere is that more evident than on Royal Toast, where Hollenbeck began by collecting song titles found in often unlikely sources, divorcing them from their original context, and devising music inspired by these evocative phrases.

Hollenbeck’s compositions somehow conjure raucous beauty from dizzying complexity, enticing the emotions with lilting melodies or irresistible grooves while engaging the cerebral side in a surreptitious workout. The music marries jazz, new music, post-rock – but no laundry list of influences is quite sufficient to describe their iconoclastic sound. Suffice it to say, you can feel secure bringing your hipster nephew and your math professor along to a gig, and everyone will go home happy.

Of course, no one could pull off such a a trompe l’oreille without a well-honed ensemble, and the Claudia Quintet has, through intensive collaboration since their 1997 debut, developed a language all their own. The music can best – perhaps only – be defined by the individuals who create it – Hollenbeck on drums, Drew Gress (Tim Berne, Ravi Coltrane, Fred Hersch) on bass, Matt Moran (Slavic Soul Party, Mat Maneri, Ellery Eskelin) on vibraphone, Ted Reichman (Anthony Braxton, Marc Ribot, Paul Simon) on accordion, and Chris Speed (Bloodcount, Yeah No, Human Feel) on clarinet and tenor sax.

As attuned as the Quintet have become to each other, they’re each remarkably attuned to themselves, as Hollenbeck discovered while recording the CD. Bridging several of the pieces on the album are short improvised interludes in which each member plays a short improvised duet with himself – unbeknownst to them until the tracks were in the can. While they sound as if each side of the mirror is reacting to the other, they were actually played separately and married after the fact.

“I didn’t know if it was going to work, so I didn’t tell anybody I was doing it,” Hollenbeck admits. “And I couldn’t believe it because each one just worked fabulously. It was totally unbelievable how they breathed in the same places – Drew even has a rest in the same spot. I think the result is better, actually, than if I had asked them to react to their solos. That might have been a little artificial.”

The quintet is here supplemented by pianist Gary Versace, a longtime collaborator of Hollenbeck’s (including the composer’s Large Ensemble and in the Refuge Trio along with vocalist Theo Bleckmann).

“Gary and I have very similar aesthetics,” Hollenbeck says, “so what he plays is exactly what I would I be doing if I could play piano really well. Gary has a very composerly approach, so he’s very sensitive to the music and tries to make his part sound composed even when it’s not.”

The addition of Versace means that half of the band is now essentially playing percussive instruments, giving Hollenbeck more opportunity than ever to follow his polyrhythmic muse – which emerges most fully on the gleefully intricate title track. But the album begins not with force but with lush intoxication. “Crane Merit” sets an unexpectedly atmospheric mood, enveloping the listener with an idyllic warmth.

Introduced by a Hollenbeck solo that gradually builds into funky propulsion, “Keramag” is the album’s toe-tappingest tune, densely wrought and utterly infectious. It and “Zurn” have the titles with the least concrete associations; the latter is a through-composed piece that generates considerable tension through an insistent drum/piano figure that is thoroughly dispelled by its ethereal finale.

“Sphinx”, on the other hand, brings very distinct associations to mind, which Hollenbeck followed through Egypt to African rhythmic influences. The word “Standard” crops up twice, and in each case the composer took this as a cue to use jazz as a leaping-off point, penning an abstracted ballad with “Ideal Standard” and a fractured anthem on “American Standard.”

The album closes with the elegiac “For Frederick Franck”, an homage to the Dutch-born painter, sculptor and author who died in 2006 at the age of 97. Hollenbeck’s personal connection to the artist comes via a sculpture park in upstate New York that Franck designed and where Hollenbeck proposed to his wife. But Franck’s expansive philosophy is also representative of Hollenbeck’s boundary-blurring approach to genre.

“The meaning of life is to see,” Franck espoused in his work, and the Claudia Quintet approach music with eyes wide open.

For more information please contact Matt Merewitz at Fully Altered Media (matt@fullyaltered.com or 347-527-2527).