Jazz : Turtle Island Quartet Stands Alone

“American Vernacular” is the term coined by the Turtle Island String Quartet to define what it does. A concert Saturday in the Smothers Theater at Pepperdine University left no doubt that this group’s ability to bring about a confluence of bluegrass, jazz, country, classical and world music has set a standard beyond the reach of its few contemporaries.

The violinists David Balakrishnan and Darol Anger, violist Katrina Wreede and cellist Mark Summer defy classification. All are versed in the art of improvisation; all are first-rate composers and arrangers; their collective backgrounds extend from folk to symphony and light opera.

Whether working on their own pieces (Summer’s “Ensenada,” Balakrishnan’s “Skylife,” Anger’s “Dexteriors”) or sublimating standards (Coltrane’s exquisite “Naima,” Chick Corea’s “Senor Mouse”), the quartet brings to each a rare unity, harmonic subtlety, and more often than not the ability to out-swing almost any other unit, despite the absence of a rhythm section. In fact, Anger’s arrangement of “Fascinating Rhythm,” a rhythmic orgy from start to finish, had Summer bowing rather than plucking almost all the way.

Wreede’s solos revealed an extemporaneous mastery rare, perhaps unique, in the annals of the viola. Anger’s long introductory workout on “Night in Tunisia” led to a high-spirited, witty duet (or duel) with Balakrishnan.

The growing popularity of this instrumentation has established a pattern now followed by several similar groups, but in the multifarious idiom they have all but invented, the Turtle Islanders remain the ne plus ultra.