Quispel Quintet

The characters, motifs, and storylines of Dutch author A. F. Th. van der Heijden served as inspiration for five jazz musicians who came together for a musical rendezvous in Vienna. Their adventurous compositions and improvisations follow an unpredictable dramatic arc—one that winds through the landscapes of cool jazz and the depths of avant-garde chamber music. What they create together is, at times, subtle and refined—and at others, wildly intoxicating. Their album, fittingly, is called Dipsomania, an old term for an insatiable craving for alcohol and drugs.

The Quispel Quintet is made up of top-tier musicians: Viennese saxophonist and clarinettist Leonhard Skorupa, American-born Dutch resident Michael Moore (also on saxophones and clarinets), Croatian cellist Asja Valčić, German bassist Robert Landfermann, and drummer Michael Vatcher, who moves between the U.S. and the Netherlands. Skorupa wrote the compositions for Dipsomania. The band name comes from Ernst Quispel, the dipsomanic main character in one of Van der Heijden’s books.

Michael Moore alto sax/klarinet, Leonhard Skorupa tenor sax/bass clarinet/clarinet/composition, Asja Valcic cello, Robert Landfermann bass, Michael Vatcher drums