Little Big Top Guy Klucevsek & Volker Goetze

• 1 Little Big Top 03:11
• 2 Fez Up 04:32
• 3 The Sun, the Moon, and the Truth 04:59
• 4 Dancing in the Aisles of the Icicle Repair Shop 03:47
• 5 Euroslavian Wedding Dance 03:14
• 6 Comin' on Home 04:03
• 7 For the First Time 04:38
• 8 O'O 03:51
• 9 The Gift 04:42
• 10 Pink Elephant 04:35
• 11 Three-Quarter Moon 03:47
• 12 Meet Me on the Midway 02:26
• 13 Tangocide 02:57
• 14 Hymn For Her 04:45
• Total Runtime 55:27

Info for Little Big Top

This captivating new jazz quartet is led by legendary accordionist/composer Guy Klucevsek and visionary trumpeter/producer Volker Goetze. Expect accordion-driven melodies where echoes of the ballroom, barroom, bordello, circus, and concert hall intermingle with jazz and folk from around the world.

In 2022, trumpeter Volker Goetze commissioned fellow Staten Island musician, composer/accordionist Guy Klucevsek, to compose and arrange music to accompany the visit of Little Amal Walks to Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island.

They formed an ad hoc quartet with Jeff Hudgins and Doug Wieselman for the event. A year later, Goetz raised additional funds for Klucevsek to create more material and the quartet reunited for a concert performance at the Newhouse Center at Snug Harbor, preceded by a week of recording at Casa Klucevsek. This is their first performance outside of Staten Island, to coincide with the release of their debut recording, “Little Big Top,” on Motéma Music.

Klucevsek’s eclectic, wide-ranging music pays tribute to Nino Rota, Rufus Reid, Kurt Weill, Ethiopian pop music, carousel music, the circus; genre music including the blues, hymn, waltz, tango, ballad and polka; and balkan folk music. He has performed at Roulette numerous times, starting in the early 1980s.

“Klucevsek’s ingenious, endless invention with ostinato, shadings of density and harmonic tension, counter-melody, virtuosic ornamental lines that spin brilliantly about the melody, divisional playing and, especially, sly displacement of rhythm and meters make his music constantly engaging. The slip-sliding metric relationships of the various lines in the mix are as sophisticated as the layered rhythms of West African drumming; witty turns of musical phrase, pull-the-rug modulations, crazy dance rhythms, surprise endings and all manner of sly musical jokes.” (Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

Little Big Top showcases the kaleidoscopic brilliance of Klucevsek’s compositional and accordionist prowess, while the unusual instrumentation also allows Goetze’s soulful and melodic approach to the horn to emerge as a highlight. Crucial also to the quartet’s sound are NYC jazz and classical veterans Doug Wieselman (bass clarinet & clarinet), and Jeff Hudgins (alto saxophone). Hudgins also sings on ‘Comin’ on Home,’ a sole vocal track inspired by Little Amal, the 12-foot puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee child who has been walking the world to raise awareness about the plight of refugee children. In addition to raising critical awareness for refugees, the humanitarian “Little Amal’ project also serendipitously brought Klucevsek out of performing retirement, united the leaders of this quartet and initiated this uplifting album.

Guy Klucevsek, accordion
Volker Goetze, trumpet
Doug Wieselman, bass clarinet & clarinet
Jeff Hudgins, alto saxophone

Guy Klucevsek
is one of the world’s most versatile and highly-respected accordionists. He has performed and/or recorded with Laurie Anderson, Bang On a Can, Brave Combo, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, Rahim al Haj, Robin Holcomb, Kepa Junkera, the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Present Music, Relâche, Zeitgeist, and John Zorn.

He is the recipient of a 2010 United States Artists Collins Fellowship, an unrestricted $50,000 award given annually to “America’s finest artists.”

He has premiered over 50 solo accordion pieces, including his own, as well as those he has commissioned from Mary Ellen Childs, William Duckworth, Fred Frith, Aaron Jay Kernis, Jerome Kitzke, Stephen Montague, Somei Satoh, Lois V Vierk, and John Zorn.

Performances include the Ten Days on the Island Festival (Tasmania), the Adelaide Festival (Australia), the Berlin Jazz Festival, Lincoln Center, Spoleto Festival/USA, BAM Next Wave Festival, Cotati Accordion Festival, San Antonio International Accordion Festival, Vienna International Accordion Festival, and the children’s television show “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

His 1987 project, Polka From the Fringe, a collection of commissioned polkas by Fred Frith, Elliott Sharp, Bobby Previte, Carl Finch, et. al., toured around the world and was released on 2 cds on the eva label, and were named “best recordings 1992” on WNYC-FM’s “New Sounds” program.

In 1996, he founded Accordion Tribe, an international ensemble of composer/accordionists Otto Lechner (Austria), Maria Kalanemi (Finland), Lars Hollmer (Sweden), Bratko Bibic (Slovenia) and himself. They toured internationally from 1996-2009, are the subjects of Stefan Schwietert’s award-winning documentary film, Accordion Tribe: Music Travels, and released 3 cds on the Intuition (Germany) label.

His music theatre scores include “Chinoiserie” and “Obon” with Ping Chong and Company, “Hard Coal,” with the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, “Industrious Angels” for Laurie McCants, “Cirque Lili” for French circus artist Jérôme Thomas, which has been performed over 250 times world wide, always with live music, and his own piece, “Squeeze Play,” an evening of collaborations with Dan Hurlin, David Dorfman and Dan Froot, Claire Porter, and Mary Ellen Childs. He and Dan Hurlin were awarded, jointly, a BESSIE for, “The Heart of the Andes,” which has played the Henson International Puppetry Festival, The Barbican Center in London, and the Ten Days on the Island Festival, Tasmania.

Klucevsek has released over 20 recordings as soloist/leader on Tzadik, Winter & Winter, innova, Starkland, Review, Intuition, CRI, and XI. Stereo Review cited his Starkland recording, Transylvanian Software, as a recording of special merit” (1995). He can also be heard on John Williams’s orchestral scores for the Steven Spielberg films, “The Terminal,” “Munich,” “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” and “The Adventures of Tin-Tin,” and on A. R. Rahman’s score for “People Like Us.”

Volker Goetze
An award-winning German jazz trumpeter, composer, filmmaker, producer, and conceptualist based in New York City since 2002, Goetze specializes in bringing ancient folkloric cultures together with contemporary jazz soundscapes, creating narratives that support peace and cooperation. Initially gaining his trumpet degree with Markus Stockhausen in Cologne, Goetze completed his master's degree at Aaron Copland School of Music in New York City. A visit to Senegal in 1996 indelibly changed his life when he struck up a musical partnership with a Senegalese Griot, Ablaye CIssoko, leading to a successful three-album, twelve-year run of producing, recording, and touring internationally as a duo. Goetze also directed an award-winning documentary film, GRIOT, that was reviewed as "Stunningly beautiful" by The Globe and Mail (UK), and became an official selection of film festivals in Amsterdam, Vancouver, Warsaw, Valladolid, and Thessaloniki. 

In 2012 Goetze joined the Motéma roster with the release of Amanke Dionti, his second of three collaborations with Ablaye Cissoko. Following that he released a third album with Cissoko, two quintet albums, and a duo project with pianist Christian Torkewitz, before rejoining the Motéma roster in 2023 to release Flamenkora, his current touring group which features the esteemed Paris-based Senegalese Griot and Kora master Ali Boulo Santo Cissoko, and the Brazilian-born, Madrid-based, flamenco guitar ace, Roberto Monteiro and which unites West African Mande music with authentic Spanish flamenco guitar and American and Euro jazz trumpet to create a transglobal alliance unlike any other.. Flamenkora is selling out performances in Europe and is now developing their second album. Goetze and Ali Boulo Santo Cissoko also have a new duo release, Sargal, coming in 2025, which features, on three tracks, the highly respected Guadalupian percussionist Mino Cinelu (Miles Davis, Sting, Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Peter Gabriel, Stevie Wonder).

This album contains no booklet.