Chicago band The Claudettes follow-up 2015’s No Hotel with their third studio album, Dance Scandal at the Gymnasium. If you are new to The Claudettes, then providing some context about the band’s history is necessary: a Korean bar owner in Illinois (Claudette) hired blues pianist Johnny Iguana (Junior Wells, Otis Rush), connected him with avant-garde percussionist Michael Caskey (John Sinclair, Chuck Mangione) and then leased the band out to other local bars with the stipulation she comes along too. This original line-up performed on The Claudettes’ debut, Infernal Piano Plot…Hatched, which was a fun mix of driving piano based jazz, blues and juke joint style boogie-woogie, as well as their second effort, No Hotel, which pushed things even further with drastic reworkings of Irving Berlin’s “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “California Here I Come.” The band’s composition changed with the addition of Yana, a Nigerian-America vocalist who added prose to the songs along with warbled vocals. Their latest release features Iguana (piano) as the only remaining original member in the newly formed quartet with Berit Ulseth (vocals), Zach Verdoorn (bass, guitars), and Matthew Torre (drums, percussion). Dance Scandal at the Gymnasium combines musical styles for a retro vibe with modern tongue-in-cheek humor. Standout tracks include: the lively title-track; the wistful “Pull Closer to Me”; the Bill Clinton inspired “Bill Played Saxophone”; the spaced-out “Taco Night Material”; the quirky call-and-response number “Naked on the Internet”; and the driving closing track “Utterly Absurd.” Both The Claudettes and their genre blending Dance Scandal at the Gymnasium album are fascinating and ever-evolving, and I look forward to seeing what the band is up to next. – Written by JFelton
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