The Claudia Quintet - special guest Matt Mitchell piano

The Claudia Quintet makes music that's a cross between jazz, progressive rock and chamber music, reminiscent of Jaga Jazzist. Their music is highly atmospheric and verges on the ambient due to the combination of dance grooves with open, often rapidly played harmonious structures. The compositions have strong repetitive undertones, complex interacting melody lines and changing rhythms. The overall musical effect is important: no emotional outbursts, no shrieking saxophones, no lengthy digressions. Everything fits snugly together, with unusual melodies superimposing one another. One moment the music sounds hilarious, the next incredibly beautiful. The big secret of this fivesome is the colour of their sound. Clarinet, vibraphone and accordion in unison on a repetitive theme in the style of Philip Glass, as support for a bewitching double bass solo and developing into a collective lingering and pounding whole on thin, monotone accordion sounds, with a bassist and clarinettist who know how to wring every last drop of sadness out of their instruments… And with a hypnotic bluesy vibraphone that steals the show. In short, five men with a broad range of styles, virtually impossible to define, provocative and bubbly, with a feminine elegance. The jazz critics were unanimously full of praise at the end of 2008: "Relaxed, yet intense. Atmospheric, strange, and yet familiar." The resident composer John Hollenbeck has written some new music specially for this tour, and has added one instrument, the piano. Matt Mitchell is the kindred artistic spirit who will be joining the ensemble.