Penguin Café Orchestra

All Music Guide:

The Penguin Cafe Orchestra (PCO) was founded by British composer Simon Jeffes (born February 19, 1949; died December 10, 1997). Born in Sussex, England, and raised in Canada and around Europe, Jeffes began playing the guitar at the age of 13 while attending boarding school in England and then studied classical guitar, piano, and music theory at Chiswick Polytechnic, but dropped out before graduating. He worked with Gilbert Biberian's Omega Players for a time and accompanied producer Rupert Hine on Hine's solo albums Pick Up a Bone (1970) and Unfinished Picture (1971). While living in Japan in 1972, he developed an interest in ethnic music, particularly African styles, and decided to try to merge those styles with more traditional Western sounds. He launched the PCO as an outlet for his compositions with this eclectic hybrid approach. He always said that the "Penguin Cafe" concept was one that came to him in a dream while he was suffering from food poisoning in the south of France in the summer of 1972, after which he wrote a poem that began, "I am the proprietor of the Penguin Cafe, I will tell you things at random." He described the music of the group as "modern semi-acoustic chamber music."

The PCO was organized as a fluctuating unit in which Jeffes and cellist Helen Liebmann were the only permanent members. At first, when it began playing in London, England, in 1973, it was called the Penguin Cafe Quartet. The members of the group, not yet performing publicly, were Jeffes (on electric guitar), Liebmann, violinist Gavyn Wright, and Steve Nye on electric piano. In 1974, they made their first recordings, "Penguin Cafe Single," "The Sound of Someone You Love Who's Going Away," and "It Doesn't Matter." In 1975, Nye, who knew producer Brian Eno, introduced Jeffes to him, and Eno invited the group to record for his Obscure Records, an imprint of Editions E.G.. They did, adding university lecturer Neil Rennie (ukulele) and Emily Young (vocals), a painter who gave the group a visual style with her cover painting for the album, Music from the Penguin Cafe (1976). The first concert by the ensemble was an opening slot for Kraftwerk at the Roundhouse in London in 1977, and the group expanded further to include Geoffrey Richardson (viola), Peter Veitch (accordion), Giles Leaman (woodwinds), Braco (drums), and Julio Segovia (cymbals). Now boasting far more than four members, the band was too big to be called a quartet, and it was christened the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

In 1979, Jeffes converted a garage in North Kensington into a recording studio and in 1980 began working on the PCO's second album, released as Penguin Cafe Orchestra in 1981. Afterwards, composer Marcus Beale joined the group on violin in time for the first European tour. A Japanese tour followed in early 1982. Popular acclaim in Japan led to another tour there and the recording of Mini Album, a live EP, mostly in Tokyo. As the PCO prepared its third full-length LP, Broadcasting from Home (1984), personnel came and went, the additions including Annie Whitehead (trombone), Dave Defries (trumpet), and drummers Fami, Trevor Morais, and Mike Giles. After the album was released, the group raised its profile by touring extensively and appearing on television, and the fourth album, Signs of Life actually reached the British charts in April 1987. (The album featured new members Danny Cummings on percussion and Bob Loveday on violin.)

Continuing to tour, the PCO recorded a full-length live album at Festival Hall on July 9, 1987; it was released in 1988 under the title When in Rome .... New members included Ian Maidman (bass, percussion) and Paul Street (guitar). Jeffes next accepted an invitation from choreographer David Bintley of the Royal Ballet to adapt some of the PCO's music for a dance piece, resulting in the ballet Still Life at the Penguin Cafe, which was performed at Covent Garden and elsewhere in the U.K., as well as in Germany and Australia. The PCO also toured, primarily in Europe, during the late '80s and early '90s. For their next and final studio album of new material, Union Café (1993; released on Jeffes' own Zopf label), the group consisted of Jeffes, Liebmann, Maidman, Rennie, Richardson, Segovia, and Whitehead, although many guest musicians also contributed. Their 1994 tour was commemorated with another live album, Concert Program (1995), recorded July 23, 1994, at Wool Hall in Somerset, England. (New age label Windham Hill distributed the disc in the U.S.)

The PCO continued into the mid-'90s, although Jeffes gradually became less active, moving to Somerset in 1996 and concentrating on solo piano. The band's formal dissolution was confirmed by his death from a brain tumor. While the PCO's music was featured in many television commercials and films, it formed the soundtrack for the 1998 movie Oskar und Leni, resulting in a soundtrack album released by Peregrina in 1999.

Members of the group reunited ten years after Jeffes' death for concerts on December 11, 12, and 13, 2007, at the Union Chapel in Islington, North London. This commemorative edition of the PCO included Helen Liebmann (cello), Neil Rennie (ukulele), Geoffrey Richardson (viola/clarinet), Peter McGowan (violin), Steve Fletcher (piano), Barbara Bolte (oboe), Annie Whitehead (trombone), and Jennifer Maidman (bass/percussion), with guest appearances by Steve Nye and Jeffes' son Arthur Jeffes. Although the shows were well attended and well received, the group announced immediately afterward that it had no further plans for concerts. In October 2008, a note on the PCO's official website mysteriously said, "There are some very tentative plans afoot to start a new enterprise in the PCO saga... more later."

Wikipedia:

The Penguin Cafe Orchestra (PCO) was a collective of performing musicians created by classically trained British guitarist, composer and arranger Simon Jeffes. Jeffes and cellist co-founder Helen Liebmann were core members throughout its life and a number of other musicians joined as the band grew and developed, many of whom appear on the PCO's six studio albums.

The PCO toured extensively during the 1980s and 1990s, and two albums, "When in Rome" (1988) and "Concert Program" (1995) captured the sound of the live ensemble. The Penguin's sound is not easily categorized, but has elements of exuberant folk music and a minimalist aesthetic occasionally reminiscent of composers such as Philip Glass. The Penguin Cafe Orchestra recorded and performed for 24 years until Jeffes died of a brain tumour in 1997.

History

After becoming disillusioned with the rigid structures of classical music and the limitations of rock music, in which he also dabbled, Jeffes became interested in the relative freedom in ethnic music and decided to imbue his work with the same sense of immediacy and spirit.

Describing how the idea of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra came to him, Jeffes said:

The first album, Music From The Penguin Cafe, was released in 1976 on Brian Eno's experimental Obscure Records label, an offshoot of the EG label; a collection of pieces recorded in the years 1974-1976, it was followed in 1981 by Penguin Cafe Orchestra, after which the band settled into a more regular release schedule.

The band played its first major concert on 10 October 1976, supporting Kraftwerk at The Roundhouse. The PCO went on to tour the world and play at a variety of music festivals as well as residencies on the South Bank in London. Between 1976 and 1996 they played in the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, and throughout Europe and the UK. In March 1987 the group was the subject of an episode of the ITV arts series The South Bank Show, on which they performed "Air", "Bean Fields", "Dirt" and "Giles Farnaby's Dream".

Evolution

Simon Jeffes experimented with various configurations both live and in the studio, including an occasional 'dance orchestra' and a quintet of strings, oboe, trombone and himself on piano. On the studio albums he sometimes played many of the instruments himself, and brought in the other musicians according to the needs of a particular piece.

There were a number of incarnations of the live band. Original members Gavyn Wright and Steve Nye left in 1984 and 1988 respectively. Bob Loveday replaced Gavyn Wright on violin. Gradually a regular line-up evolved around Simon Jeffes and Helen Liebman: Neil Rennie, who joined in 1975 on ukulele; Geoffrey Richardson, who had joined in 1976 and co-wrote three pieces on Broadcasting from Home (1984), played viola, cuatro, guitar, clarinet, mandolin and ukulele; Julio Segovia answered an advert in the Melody Maker and joined in 1978 on percussion; Paul Street joined in 1984 playing guitar, cuatro and ukulele, leaving in 1988; Jennifer Maidman joined in 1984 on percussion, bass, ukulele and cuatro; Steve Fletcher replaced Steve Nye in 1988 on piano and keyboards and Annie Whitehead, who had also appeared on Broadcasting from Home (1984), joined the live band in 1988 on trombone. Finally, Peter McGowan took over from Bob Loveday on violin and Barbara Bolte joined on oboe. Doug Bevridge also became a regular fixture at the live mixing desk. The album Concert Program (1995) is the definitive recording of this line up, and includes many of the Penguin's best known pieces.

Subsequent lineups - Penguin Cafe and Anteaters

After Simon Jeffes' death, members of the orchestra continued to meet up occasionally to play together, but there were no new recordings or public appearances for over ten years. In 2007 the band briefly re-formed, with the line up as featured on 'Concert Program' (minus Julio Segovia), with Jennifer Maidman now handling Simon's guitar parts. The original members were joined on stage by Simon Jeffes' son Arthur on percussion and additional keyboards, and played three sold-out shows at the Union Chapel in London. After those concerts Arthur Jeffes wanted to form a new group without any of the original PCO members. This he initially called "Music from the Penguin Cafe", later this was shortened to simply "Penguin Cafe". This all-new ensemble, often inaccurately billed as 'The Penguin Cafe Orchestra' in the press, played at a number of festivals in 2009, combining Penguin Cafe numbers with new pieces and in 2010 appeared at the BBC Proms (with Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell).

With the 'Penguin Cafe' trademark owned by Arthur's company, the original Penguins who wanted to continue playing their music looked for an alternative title. Four of them, the multi-instrumentalists Geoffrey Richardson and Jennifer Maidman, trombonist Annie Whitehead and pianist Steve Fletcher have since played some festivals under the name 'The Anteaters'. They have been joined by percussionist Liam Genockey. Well known as a member of Steeleye Span, Liam had also played live with the Penguins in Italy in the 1980s. The name 'Anteaters' came from an incident on the 1983 PCO tour of Japan when Simon Jeffes discovered there was a craze for penguins in the country. Simon joked that, if the fashion changed, the orchestra would have to change its name to "The Anteater Cafe Orchestra". In October 2011 the same line-up also appeared at the Canterbury Festival in Kent, UK, performing two hours of original PCO music under another name "The Orchestra That Fell To Earth".

Famous pieces

The Penguin Cafe Orchestra's most famous piece may be "Telephone and Rubber Band", which is based around a tape loop of a UK telephone ringing tone intersected with an engaged (busy) tone, accompanied by the twanging of a rubber band. The piece is featured on the soundtracks of Nadia Tass's film comedy Malcolm (1986) and Oliver Stone's film Talk Radio (1988), and in a long-running advertising campaign for the telecoms company One2One (now T-Mobile). The 1996 single "In The Meantime" by English rockers residing in New York City, Spacehog, featured a tweaked and fine-tuned sample of "Telephone and Rubber Band". It was also the trademark song of the Argentinean show dedicated to artistic animation "Caloi en su tinta". The tape loop was recorded when Jeffes was making a phone call, and discovered that he was hearing a combination of a ring tone and an engaged signal at the same time, due to a fault in the system. He recorded it on an answering machine.

Another famous tune featured in Malcolm (among other films) is "Music for a Found Harmonium", which Jeffes wrote on a harmonium that he had found dumped in a back street in Kyoto, where he was staying in the summer of 1982 after the ensemble's first tour of Japan. He wrote that after installing the found harmonium "in a friend's house in one of the most beautiful parts at the edge of the city," he "frequently visited this instrument during the next few months, and I remember the time fondly as one during which I was under a form of enchantment with the place and the time." Preludes Airs and Yodels (A Penguin Cafe primer) Virgin Records Ltd 1996  "Music for a Found Harmonium" was used over the end-credits of the 1988 John Hughes movie "She's Having a Baby" where many film actors and celebrities of the time invent their favourite name for an imagined child, although it was not placed on the soundtrack accompanying the movie. The piece gained exposure when it was released on the first Café del Mar volume in 1994. Its rhythm, tempo and simple structure made it very suitable for adaptation into a reel, and it was subsequently recorded by many Irish traditional musicians, including Patrick Street, De Dannan, Kevin Burke and Sharon Shannon. An Irish traditional version was used on the soundtrack of the film Hear My Song, made in Ireland in the early 1990s. In 2004, Patrick Street's cover of "Music For A Found Harmonium" was featured in the film Napoleon Dynamite and the following year in the film It's All Gone Pete Tong. The Scottish folk rock band Rock Salt and Nails, from Shetland, also recorded a version for their debut album Waves in 1993.

Simon Jeffes composed most of the music for the ballet Still Life at the Penguin Cafe, largely based on earlier compositions for the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Geoffrey Richardson also composed music for the ballet, which was first performed by the Royal Ballet in 1988 and released as an album under Jeffes' name.

Uses by others

Covers and sampling

Film

Penguin Cafe Orchestra music featured on the 1986 Australian cult film Malcolm, written by David Parker and directed by Nadia Tass. The film won the 1986 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film.

"Telephone & Rubber Band" was used during the final scene of the Oliver Stone's film Talk Radio (1988)

Penguin Cafe Orchestra music featured on the Petra Katharina Wagner film Oskar und Leni (1999). The music was also issued on a separate CD.

"Nothing Really Blue" was used during the final scene of the German film The Princess and the Warrior (2000).

"Perpetuum Mobile" was used the main theme for the documentary The Union: The Business Behind Getting High (2007).

"Perpetuum Mobile" was used at various moments in the animated Australian film Mary and Max (2009).

"Perpetuum Mobile" was also used in the Swedish movie Slim Susie (2003).

"Perpetuum Mobile" was used in the documentary Project Nim (2011).

"Music For A Found Harmonium" is featured in Michael Moore's documentary film Capitalism: A Love Story (2009), as he wraps several Wall Street banks and the New York Stock Exchange in crime scene tape.

"Music For A Found Harmonium" was also used in 2004's It's All Gone Pete Tong.

"Music For A Found Harmonium" was used for the ending montage in Napoleon Dynamite (2004), but was not included on the motion picture soundtrack.

Radio/Podcasts

Television

Advertising

The music of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra has been used in advertisements for Eurotunnel, The Independent, Hewlett Packard, MFI, Knorr, One2One, Origin Energy, Ford and Bradesco.

Personnel

Arthur Jeffes' Penguin Cafe (2009 onwards)

In 2009 a new band called Penguin Cafe was formed by Arthur Jeffes, son of Simon and Emily Young, and appeared at the BBC Proms on 8 September 2010. The line-up included Darren Barry (violin), Cass Browne (percussion/drums), Tom Chichester-Clark (piano/harmonium/cuatro/guitar/melodica), Neil Codling (piano/guitar/ukulele/harmonium/cuatro), Vincent Greene (viola), Oli Langford (violin), Des Murphy (ukulele), Pete Radcliffe (percussion/drums), Andrew Waterworth (double bass), Rebecca Waterworth (cello) and Kathryn Tickell (Northumbrian smallpipes/fiddle).