PRESS
August 18 2009
Published in: Time Out The Volume by
Hank Shteamer
If Susan Boyle has taught us anything worthwhile, it’s that we shouldn’t judge musicians by their appearance. But in the case of the bespectacled, neatly groomed John Hollenbeck, you wouldn’t be too far off you imagined his work to skew brainy. As heard on the track below, taken from the percussionist-composer’s new release, Rainbow Jimmies (available at CD Baby), Hollenbeck favors the sort of asymmetrical rhythmic vamps that would make most math-rockers sweat. But what’s long impressed us about his music is the way he leavens the complexity with a sense of playful wonder. Listening to “Gray Cottage Study #6: Jazz Hands”—composed for violinist Todd Reynolds as part of Hollenbeck’s recent Guggenheim Fellowship—you get the sense the the leader, Reynolds and vibraphonist Matt Moran (also of Hollenbeck’s outstanding Claudia Quintet) are all having a ball navigating the piece’s devilish contours. As with many Hollenbeck compositions, it’s less an obstacle course than a jungle gym.