JAZZ : Turtle Island Makes the Strings Swing

“Strings can’t swing” has long been a cliche derogation in the jazz world. Though many individual violinists have earned reputations for their virtuosity, the string section per se traditionally has had trouble interpreting jazz arrangements with the right rhythmic feeling.

The arrival of the Turtle Island String Quartet may change forever the image of the supposedly non-swinging string unit. Unlike the Kronos Quartet, which has recorded some admirable jazz but has to call on outsiders to provide ad lib solos, the Turtle Island group consists of two violinists, a violist and cellist, all of whom are experienced improvising musicians.

Visiting Los Angeles recently to promote their album (“Turtle Island String Quartet,” Windham Hill Jazz WD-0110), the violinists David Balakrishnan and Darol Anger described how the group came into focus.

“I studied classical violin through college,” said Balakrishnan, “but I always wanted to play jazz, and, when I was younger, rock ‘n’ roll. I got my master’s degree in composition and graduated from UCLA in 1976.”

Anger, by that time, had played bluegrass/swing in the David Grisman Quintet and had listened to “Jazz Violin Summit,” a record by Jean-Luc Ponty, Stephane Grappelli, Stuff Smith and Svend Asmussen, all improvising pioneers.

After exploring the violin’s potential as an electric rock vehicle, he moved into the jazz and bluegrass scenes in the Pacific Northwest, honing his craft in bars and fiddle contests before becoming a founding member of the David Grisman Quintet.

When Anger met Balakrishnan in 1978 it turned out that both had been inspired by “Jazz Violin Summit.” Their backgrounds were similar and they began a mutually stimulating exchange of ideas.

Two years later a record entitled “Jazz Violin Celebration,” with Balakrishnan, Anger and a third violinist, Matt Glaser, caught the ear of Mark Summer, a Los Angeles born cellist who had graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music and promptly received a position with the Winnipeg Symphony in Manitoba. It was a move he soon regretted.

“Over the years I became more and more disenchanted with the classical life,” Summer now says. “I didn’t care for the stress and the strictness; on the other hand, I was strongly attracted to the concept of improvising, which I’d tried on piano and guitar.

“I quit the Symphony and formed a group called the West End Stringband. We played at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1985, and that’s where I met Darol Anger. The next year I moved to the Bay Area and we got together again.”

The fourth Turtle Islander, Irene Sazer, born in 1959 in Los Angeles, had been playing violin for eight years when, at 15, she performed as concert master at the USC campus in Idyllwild. After racking up credits as second violinist at Tanglewood under Seiji Ozawa, earning her bachelor of music degree at Peabody Conservatory and joining the Baltimore Symphony in 1982, she too began leading a double life, moonlighting in a country-swing band. In January of 1986, she too moved to the Bay Area, where she soon found that her dual talents were rare and welcome.

“For many years there had been a shortage of qualified string players with a jazz feeling,” Balakrishnan said, “In fact, I had to do some recording in which I played all the parts myself by overdubbing. When the four of us finally got together, we decided the time had come to organize a string ensemble that could involve all the disciplines, playing string quartet music, Third World music and jazz. Irene had been playing violin, but in order to give us the orthodox instrumentation--two violins, viola and cello--she switched to viola, and learned our entire library in seven days.”

The basic idea was not new: as far back as 1980 Balakrishnan had been playing arrangements for four violins in a group known as Saheeb. But the general inexperience among string musicians, in terms of escaping from traditional and often stiff classical phrasing, was always a problem until the Turtle Island String Quartet was founded.

The spirit and spontaneity in the album made an immediate and startling impression. Balakrishnan contributed arrangements of Oliver Nelson’s “Stolen Moments,” Dizzy Gillespie’s “Night in Tunisia” and Miles Davis’ “Milestones,” leaving room in all three for improvised passages. Similarly Anger wrote a treatment of Bud Powell’s “Tempus Fugit.” Recorded on the same occasion was an original string quartet work by Balakrishnan.

“Now we’re moving ahead on two fronts,” said Balakrishnan. “We’re doing club dates whenever we can with the jazz quartet; and we’re pursuing the academic side. I received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to write a piece for a string orchestra, which will incorporate the quartet. “Most of the material we’re doing,” said Anger, “was composed or arranged from within the group, and it’s enabling us to do things that are outside the scope of many players. There’s also an important rhythmic factor in that both David and I have had plenty of experience working in groups that don’t have drums, and we can still generate a swinging feeling.”

The Turtle Island foursome is, astonishing though it may seem, the first-ever string ensemble in which all the members not only play jazz material authentically as an ensemble, but also are all experienced in the improvisational art. In other words, it has taken some 70 years for the strings to develop a talent that evolved among saxophonists, trumpeters, trombonists and clarinetists at the dawn of jazz history.