Acoustic Quartet Marks a Decade of Harmonizing : Music: The 10-year-old Quartet Music plays its first local concert of the year tonight at the Long Beach Museum of Art.

Quartet Music has become one of those groups that comes together when it’s convenient, said percussionist Alex Cline, and it actually works because the ensemble isn’t the music of any one or two of its members.

“The group reflects those four people when they play music and it just takes on its own life,” Cline said. “The compositions they contribute are written strictly with the group identity in mind so it dictates its own style. Because of that, it will always have a life we can return to--it isn’t something we’ve had difficulty rekindling if we’ve been away from it for awhile.”

Quartet Music also includes Jeff Gauthier (violin), Eric von Essen and Nels Cline (acoustic guitar) and makes its first local concert appearance this year tonight at the Long Beach Museum of Art. It wasn’t for lack of trying--two scheduled 10-year anniversary performances earlier this year were canceled due to illness and injury.

The group formed when Von Essen and Nels Cline began looking to expand the range of their duets in an acoustic framework. Gauthier was recruited from a classical orchestra and Alex Cline, who was involved in a number of a wide-ranging jazz explorations, rounded out the lineup. The acoustic nature of the music forced adjustments on Cline’s part.

“It necessitated creating a different set-up of (percussion) instruments that would blend well with that instrumentation,” said Cline, 34. “We laughingly call it an acoustic group because everything has to be miked or you can’t play with a drum set. With the set-up I have, I can flail away at full intensity and not completely overwhelm the band.”

Quartet Music isn’t Cline’s only outlet. Since 1976, the lanky percussionist has appeared on more than 30 albums--mostly on small Los Angeles-based labels--and served as the accompanist/collaborator on many experimental dance projects.

In addition to his ongoing involvement with Quartet Music, pianist Richard Grossman’s trio and saxophonist Vinny Golia’s Quintet and Large Ensemble, Cline recently formed his own group and released his debut album for ECM, “The Lamp and the Star.” Another side of his music will be displayed during the Los Angeles Festival when Cline performs a solo percussion concert at 5 p.m. Sept. 8 in Griffith Park.

“I haven’t played a solo concert in six years so I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “I used to have a repertoire of solo pieces but after I recorded some in 1981, I decided I was just going to improvise my solo concerts.”

Cline will have no shortage of instruments around to negotiate those musical points--his standard alignment of drums and percussion takes a minimum of two hours to assemble. His quest for a broader vocabulary has led him to incorporate everyday implements like kitchen pots and wrenches as well as an imposing array of chimes, gongs and cymbals.

“When I play solo, there’s more focus on the Asian elements of what I’m doing with the gongs and bells and singing bowls which fit into their Pacific Rim thematic idea,” Cline said. “I’ve always been drawn to rich sounds and the Asians for centuries have had the market cornered on high-quality metal percussion instruments. The singing bowls and hand bells from the Tibetan region, in terms of harmonic range, sustain and sonic richness, are probably the best ever made.”

A Los Angeles native, Cline began playing in rock bands with his twin, Nels, in the late ‘60s before gravitating toward jazz behind the influence of drummers Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette and Roy Haynes. The early ‘70s groups of Herbie Hancock, Pharaoh Sanders and the Art Ensemble of Chicago introduced Cline to a wider array of percussion sounds.

Now Cline faces the challenge of trying to secure work for his band, not the easiest task when the group features an ethereal, evanescent sound that doesn’t strive for dramatic effect. Some listeners might relegate Cline’s music to the New Age zone but he rejects the label.

“There’s enough of a discomfort factor in my music to scare New Age people off because they’re really looking for background music and that doesn’t interest me at all,” he said. “I like to be moved by music--I don’t need it to be sonic incense.”

“Some people might think what I do as a solo percussionist is too (New Age-ish) because they’re not accustomed to hearing one or two bells ringing together as enough to listen to in itself . . . but without becoming too Cage-ian, that may be something the listener needs to re-evaluate.”