The Claudia Quintet

On the Claudia Quintet’s latest genre-bending album, For, composer and percussionist John Hollenbeck dedicates each of the disc’s eight songs to different people, from Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek and Dick Cheney’s daughter Mary to Vipassana meditation teacher S.N. Goenka. While “I’m So Frickin’ Cool” may have been written for Austrian pianist Fritz Pauer, the song could easily be about Hollenbeck himself. Throughout the quintet’s ten-year, four-album run, Hollenbeck has written some, well, frickin’ cool songs that traverse musical boundaries, bridging jazz, classical, minimalism and avant-garde. Hollenbeck’s virtuosic drumming and percussion chops are the backbone of most of the cuts; the guy is a rhythm wiz. And for these two local dates, he’ll be joined by each of the equally adventurous musicians who appear on For, including bassist Drew Gress, reedsman Chris Speed, vibraphonist Matt Moran and accordionist Ted Reichman.