Royal Toast

Short, overdubbed dialogue solos by Speed, bassist Drew Gress and vibist Matt Moran add diverting interludes, and there's plenty of dreamy humming-glass sounds and luxurious accordion sighs to balance all this fine album's industrious busyness.

The quintet adds Gary Versace on piano, and he blends in seamlessly, sometimes as ensemble player with a perfect grasp of Hollenbeck's jolty, elastic sensibility, and elsewhere with a cool pianism that brings the sound back to more familiar jazz terrain.

For those unfamiliar with this exemplary quintet and its composer, there's no better place to begin.

Structure and liberty are both so integrated into the band playbook that they don't assume any kind of opposition. That's more commonplace than it used to be too, though this group still makes it feel special.

Claudia's timbres, eerie and winsome in equal measure, prove its greatest strong point. The combination of clarinet, accordion and vibraphone fashions an electric whistle and whir that squares the circle between 90s indie science frictioners Stereolab and 60s proto-proggers Soft Machine, making it clear that Claudia is a jazz group questioning the divide between genres and points in time.

Frequently mining a trebly, contemplative territory, the album can initially feel somewhat monochromatic, but unexpected pleasures lie below the surface.

Hollenbeck leavens the severity of his attack with instrumental warmth and unusual ensemble timbre: reeds (Chris Speed), accordion (Ted Reichman), vibes (Matt Moran), bass (Drew Gress), percussion--plus, on Royal Toast, frequent collaborator Gary Versace on piano.