John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet will be graciously sharing the bill with the Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra at the upcoming Melbourne International Jazz Festival. Hollenbeck and vocalist Theo Bleckmann will join the Mothership to lead us through a program of Hollenbeck’s large ensemble work.
It’s easy to feel like jazz orchestras are disproportionately re-hashing the past: writing for any large ensemble takes a lot of experience, gained through trial and error, and therefore not many people make it to a point where they can effectively write for a large jazz ensemble in a truly contemporary manner: Hollenbeck’s music is truly contemporary, thrillingly so, and I’ve been looking forward to these gigs so much… it’s a real shame we only get to play two of them. We’ll be playing music from Hollenbeck’s two Grammy-nominated large ensemble albums: You can hear some here, and read a very articulate review here.
Tickets: BMW Edge, Melbourne, May 8th, and The Basement, Sydney, May 11.
