Jazz Reviews : ‘American Vernacular’ of Turtle Island String Quartet

The idea of spicing up their music with bits and pieces of jazz and pop seems to be occuring more often to string quartet players these days. But it has remained for the Turtle Island String Quartet (named after a Gary Snyder book) to take the thought one step further. In a program at Santa Monica’s At My Place on Thursday night, the Oakland-based ensemble moved beyond the rudimentary reading of jazz and pop arrangements into the spontaneous musical interactions of real improvisation.

Violinist Darol Anger, the group’s primary solo threat, described Turtle Island’s music as “American vernacular”--an eclectic mixture of jazz, Swing, blue grass, folk and assorted musical odds and ends--and the description was an apt one.

The first two works, for example, included a hard-swinging romp through “Night in Tunisia,” followed by violinist David Balakrisnan’s off-the-wall juxtaposition of American spirit and Middle East attitudes in “Eurasian Hoedown.”

All four members of the quartet had attractive solo moments, with Anger especially loose and funky on his original “Street Stuff” and violist Irene Sazer winging surprisingly fanciful flights on an instrument that has virtually no improvisational tradition. Underneath most of the pieces--and notably so on Miles Davis’ classic “Milestones”--cellist Mark Summer’s lines bristled with an unrelenting rhythmic impetus.

The most attractive aspect of Turtle Island’s performance, however, traced to the fact that the pure novelty value of hearing a string quartet perform the works of Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis et al. soon faded. What remained was the more sustaining image of a group of gifted musicians playing pieces that had no difficulty standing on their own as solid, improvisational music.

Appearing on the same bill was Billy Childs, a pianist who plays and writes so well that it’s amazing that he has managed to perform in the L.A. area for nearly a decade while maintaining a remarkably low level of visibility.

Childs--already a veteran of stints with J. J. Johnson, Freddie Hubbard and Diane Reeves--took a giant step toward firming up his image. With a new Windham Hill album about to be released, and a batch of brightly innovative new compositions just completed, he cruised through a set that overflowed with creative vigor.

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of Childs’ playing was his ability to blend so many of the disparate streams of contemporary piano styles without losing his own identity.

On John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” for example, he soloed with the rhythmic fire and fury of a McCoy Tyner, while tempering the free-flowing energies with an utterly personal lyricism.

Childs displayed solid bebop credentials on his own “Backwards Bop” and shifted easily into the moody atmosphere and dark harmonies of “Totally Alone” (which also featured a stunning solo by tenor saxophonist Bob Sheppard and solid backing from drummer Mike Baker and bassist Tony Dumas).

If Childs had a problem it was that his on-stage persona was so low-keyed, and his performance so unrelentingly intense, that the more timid members of his audience may have had difficulty staying with him. A little stronger sense of communication will go a long way toward bringing him the world-class visibility he deserves.