Marking the transition from summer to fall, September is a special month for drummer/composer John Hollenbeck, special enough to provide the title for this 2013 Claudia Quintet album, the group's sixth Cuneiform release and seventh overall. In the liner notes, bandleader Hollenbeck explains that his artist residencies during September provide "alone time" for composing amidst some quite beautiful surroundings. September, the album, reflects those times when creativity flourishes and the air alternates between warm and chilly, but also when events alter lives forever. Recording largely without written scores, Claudia's lineup of Hollenbeck, reedman Chris Speed, Drew Gress or Chris Tordini on bass, accordionist Red Wierenga (replacing Ted Reichman), and vibraphonist Matt Moran -- with no guest appearances this time -- is ideally suited to capturing the tones and timbres that the month signifies. "25th: Somber Blanket" (each track begins with a composition-related date) is calming in its measured pace of bass and accordion, crystalline in its clarity of vibes and clarinet, as Hollenbeck's drum patter rains into the mix before all the bandmembers coalesce into one of the album's loveliest buildups. Beginning with a composed but improvised-sounding showcase for Gress, with Hollenbeck soon joining him to punch up the rhythmic accents, "24th: Interval Dig" finds the band at its most animated, the bassist and drummer spurring on energized solos from Moran and Speed (on tenor).

1		20th: Soterius Lakshmi
2		9th: Wayne Phases
3		25th: Somber Blanket
4		29th, 1936: "Me Warn You"
5		22nd: Love Is Its Own Eternity
6		18th: Lemons
7		17th: Loop Piece
8		24th: Interval Dig
9		16th: Mystic Klang
10		12th: Coping Song

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