Turtle Island Quartet, Fisk Excel on Their Own Turf

The pairing of the Turtle Island String Quartet with classical guitarist Eliot Fisk seems a natural. And sure enough, their double-bill concert Friday at El Camino College’s Marsee Auditorium was a varied, winning affair . . . until the two combined to play jazz.

Turtle Island is well known for bridging the gap between jazz and classical genres with lively, improvisation-filled string arrangements of Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie numbers. Fisk is renowned in the world of classical guitar for transcriptions and detailed executions of Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn and others. But he also has an adventurous side, demonstrated by his predilection for presenting the works of contemporary classical composers.

In alternating performances, Fisk and the TISQ made strong impressions working their own turf. Only near the end of the show, when Fisk joined the quartet for their eclectic arrangement of the jazz standard, “On Green Dolphin Street,” did the program falter.

Fisk, who had shown tremendous facility playing solo earlier in the evening, seemed tentative and short on ideas when it came his turn to improvise. The volume of his sound diminished and, though he did find something to say against the sprightly string accompaniment, his effort contained little of the flow and invention one expects from jazz improvisation.

But that was the evening’s only problem. The guitarist and the quartet came together beautifully on the concluding number, Luigi Boccherini’s “Fandango for Strings,” as Fisk and Turtle Island cellist Mark Summer traded descending lines before Summer developed a flamenco beat with hand taps against the body of his instrument to pace Fisk’s dancing lines.

The quartet on its own had no trouble traveling between jazz and classical forms, often visiting both inside of a single number. Violist Danny Seidenberg’s arrangement of “Winter” from Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” (dubbed “Thin Ice”) moved to a fresh, two-step beat. Mozart was quoted inside jazz tunes, and sections of jazz percussionist Airto’s “Tombo in Seven” were delivered with a stately Baroque geometry. An arrangement of Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo a La Turk” was framed with passages of dissonance that recalled the uneasiness of Bartok’s string quartets.

Fisk displayed technical mastery and a talent for imparting warmth while covering works from Paganini, Bach and American composer George Rochberg. In a duet performance, Fisk and Turtle Island violinist Darol Anger meshed movingly when performing Robert Beaser’s arrangement of the folk song “Barbara Allen.” Only when Fisk tried to move into the world of improvisation did he perform with anything less than complete mastery.