JAZZ REVIEW : An Engaging Double-Bill From Turtle Island and Billy Taylor

Very few concerts succeed in sustaining their interest from the first moment to the last. Such a rare event was the Friday evening recital at Royce Hall by the Turtle Island String Quartet and the Billy Taylor Trio.

Formed in 1985, the quartet sounded stronger than ever, thanks to the addition of the gifted Danny Seidenberg on viola. Violinist David Balakrishnan’s arrangement of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Night in Tunisia” was a phenomenal sublimation, with Mark Summer strumming and bowing on cello, Balakrishnan and Darol Anger on violins, and one ensemble passage so operatic and “Carmen”-like that it seemed more Bizet than Dizzy.

Hard to top though this was, the quartet’s reading of Monk’s “Ruby My Dear,” followed by a movement from a new Vince Mendoza suite and a Darol Anger original, not to mention a country-bluegrass-hoedown piece, kept up the creative pace that established this unit as the best and boldest in its field.

Billy Taylor followed with a trio set (Victor Gaskin on bass, Bobby Thomas on drums) that paid tribute to fellow pianists: A waltz movement from Oscar Peterson’s “Canadiana Suite” and a treatment of Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” that managed to ad lib freely on those demanding chord changes.

The finale brought Taylor together with the quartet for his composition “Homage,” a tribute to musicians who were a vital part of his formative 52nd St. years.

Extracting the full harmonic beauty from the quartet, Taylor conveyed the essence of his idols: virtuosic violinist Eddie South, ferocious fiddler Stuff Smith, pioneer bassist and cellist Oscar Pettiford (splendidly represented in a cello-bass duet by Summer and Gaskin) and light-hearted bassist Slam Stewart.