SIMON JEFFES and the PENGUIN CAFE ORCHESTRA

Simon Jeffes was a musical adventurer who crossed boundaries with a sense of fun. He started as an avant-garde composer but through his Penguin Café Orchestra went on to develop an engaging musical Esperanto that made his work almost impossible to categorise.
He once described his eclectic musical vision as catering for an audience capable of enjoying Wilson Pickett, Beethoven, the Rolling Stones, choral music from West Africa, Bach, Stravinsky, Irish bagpipe music and even Abba on the odd occasion. His music embraced them all, frequently at one and the same time.
He formed Penguin Café Orchestra as a string band with a fluid line-up of up to seven people in late 1973; it was one of the first signings to Brian Eno's Obscure label. The first album "Music From The Penguin Café" appeared in 1976.
The PCO sound was gently insidious and foot-tapping but also experimental and full of surprises. Jeffes was like a musical gypsy, skimming off anything and everything he heard. The critic Robert Sandall described Jeffes's music as sounding "like a string quartet letting its hair down at some mysteriously-located barn dance of the future". He enjoyed the description and believed it got as close as anything to capturing the music's essence.
The 1993 album "Union Café" continued to push the boundaries, featuring Nigel Kennedy, telephones and dripping taps. "Concert Program" (1995), PCO's last album, was a live studio performance reworking earlier material.
In 1995 Jeffes moved to Somerset and built a new studio. He was working on a set of new compositions when he found a year ago that he had a brain tumor. Although this rendered him partly blind and reduced his ability to communicate, his mind remained fully alert and he bore his illness with unfailing good humour.
He died on 11 December 1997.

Further informations about Simon Jeffes and the Penguin Cafe Orchestra you will find

www.penguincafe.com

The british Penguin Cafe Orchestra is happy to experiment, creating "feel good" soulful chamber music, usually played tonge in cheek, which is not afraid of integrating rock, blues or world musicinfluences in spite of its classical Seriousness.
Szenario

The orchestra bearing this name is a highla individualistic body of sound, delicately creating bridges between a minimalistic classical sound and sparesly arranged folk worlds
Stereoplay

Simon Jeffes

2001

Piano Music
(2001, Peregrina Music PM50262)

Penguin Cafe Orchestra

1999

Oskar und Leni, Soundtrack
(1999, Peregrina Music PM50161)

SIMON JEFFES and the PENGUIN CAFE ORCHESTRA

SIMON JEFFES and the
PENGUIN CAFE ORCHESTRA

SIMON JEFFES and the PENGUIN CAFE ORCHESTRA

SIMON JEFFES and the PENGUIN CAFE ORCHESTRA

SIMON JEFFES and the PENGUIN CAFE ORCHESTRA

Demos from the CD "Piano Music"

Demos from the CD "Concert Programm"

Lullaby	RealPlayer MP3	ISDN ISDN	28.8 28.8
Shelter	RealPlayer MP3	ISDN ISDN	28.8 28.8
Kora Kora	RealPlayer MP3	ISDN ISDN	28.8 28.8

Air a danser	RealPlayer MP3	ISDN ISDN	28.8 28.8
Nothing really blue	RealPlayer MP3	ISDN ISDN	28.8 28.8
Telephone and Rubber Band	RealPlayer MP3	ISDN ISDN	28.8 28.8

Demos from the CD "Union Cafe"

Lifeboat	RealPlayer MP3	ISDN ISDN	28.8 28.8
Yodel 3	RealPlayer MP3	ISDN ISDN	28.8 28.8
Another one from Porlock	RealPlayer MP3	ISDN ISDN	28.8 28.8

1996

CONCERT PROGRAM
(1996, Peregrina Music PM50041)
UNION CAFE
(1996, Peregrina Music PM50091)