For
by The Claudia Quintet
Cuneiform Records, Silver Springs, MD,
2007
Audio CD, 8 tracks, 6142".
$ 15.00
Cuneiform Rune 247
Distributors website: http://www.cuneiformrecords.com.
Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher
Saginaw Valley State University
mosher@svsu.edu
The Claudia Quintet is celebrated for
its eclecticism, and it confidently draws
from a variety of traditions and genres
in its fourth album, For. The unfortunately-named
"I'm So Fickin' Cool" has the tonality
of 1960s jazz, which is logical since
bandleader John Hollenbeck lists Stan
Kenton as an influence. Yet it's less
frenetic than a lot of that past decade's
jazz, with less revolutionary bona fides
to prove, and perambulates like a friendly
and determined commuter-train. I show
my design students a 1970 Anglo-German
movie on the Bauhaus, and its soundtrack
is similar to this. The track "August
5, 2006" begins in the same vein but with
Afro-Brazilian percussive spices. Soon
the serial repetition of a short phrase
starts to sound like a record player needle
stuck in an LP's groove, and this reviewer
is not sure that the composition fully
works.
"Be Happy" honors the founder of Vipissana
meditation with complex rhythms, then
offers serialism but more softly and sensually,
the repeated musical phrase stirred by
a flute played at a low volume. There's
a soulful one-note sax bleat, as vibraphone
chords reassemble in the background, and
Hollenbeck's drum swoops around like a
petrel or hungry larks. Then, near the
end of the track, Ted Reichman's accordion
emerges. "Rug Boy" builds upon a bombastic
drum introduction with bumblebee-flight
accordion, till the saxophone enters to
gamely jam around the busy drummer. The
accordion is promptly chastised, as if
slowed down by police at a traffic stop.
The Quintet's "Rainy Days/Peanut Vendor
Mash-up" has a slightly nautical feel;
Stan Kenton dons a yachting cap. A voice
mutters "dream" beneath the bubbling "For
You", and the slow "This Too Shall Pass"
assembles itself into something as melancholy
and thoughtful as the funeral march for
an intelligent circus clown.