In the music spotlight: The Claudettes

Pianist Johnny Iguana launched The Claudettes as an instrumental piano-drums duo in 2011, with a foundation of blues, R&B and punk. On 2015’s “No Hotel,” the band added vocals and the swinging ’60s pop of French yé-yé music.

The Chicago-based band honors its disparate roots while crowding the palette even further on the new album “Dance Scandal at the Gymnasium!” New Orleans stroll, roots, jazz, krautrock and rockabilly are swirled into the delightfully confounding mixture.

Black Keys producer Mark Neill helmed the record, dubbing the Claudettes “an acoustic jazz piano punk band.” Iguana celebrates musical extremes, evinced by his tenure with blues legend Junior Wells’ group and years with Chicago post-punks oh my god. He insists that it’s possible to love Otis Spann and the Minutemen equally. “Since I was 15, I’ve loved being in a blues band and a punk band at the same time,” says Iguana. “I’ve needed that breadth. The Claudettes let me put it all together.”

The Claudettes’ evolving line-up has solidified during the past two-and-a-half years. Iguana’s former oh my god bandmate Zach Verdoorn plays frequently feral bass and guitar. Berit Ulseth’s supple, jazz-schooled voice is a natural fit for the band’s versions of ’60s pop-soul chart-topper “Our Day Will Come” and The Sundays’ alt-pop hit “Here’s Where the Story Ends.” Both songs appeared on the Independent Music Award-winning 2017 EP “Pull Closer to Me: Live in the Piano Room.” “I like having a hot band with a cool singer,” says Iguana.

Early Claudettes shows incorporated onstage props, but gimmickry has been minimized in favor of musical thrills as the group has grown. Showmanship still has its place, to a point. “I bring a sort of Borscht Belt humor to the MC-ing I do onstage, but there’s a line I carefully walk,” says Iguana. “I don’t want Berit to pour her heart into a song and have that undercut by jokes.”

The band will perform new songs during Friday’s album release show at Emporium. The rowdy setting will suit barrelhouse rockers like social media satire “Naked on the Internet,” wherein Iguana deploys his piano as a blunt-force instrument. “The first two breaks are 100 percent Ray Charles, but the Cramps are in there, too,” says Iguana. Alongside the crafty homages, the band brazenly swipes Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild” drum fill. “It had to be done,” says Iguana with a laugh.

The venue’s Arcade Bar might not permit the pin-drop attention required for the sublime and intimate “Pull Closer to Me.” “It’s not a foot-stomper,” says Iguana. “That’s one for a jazz club, where it can be whisper-quiet. You have to plan your set list for the environment. I’m really happy our material allows us to do that.”

* The Claudettes, with The Cell Phones, 10 p.m. Apr. 27, Emporium (Wicker Park), 1366 N. Milwaukee, free admission (ages 21+over); emporiumchicago.com.

Jeff Elbel is a local freelance writer.