Turtle Island String Quartet

One of the Bay Area’s most coveted possessions, the Turtle Island String Quartet presents renditions of jazz that drip with passion, vigor, creativity, and talent. Those lucky enough to hear their recent concert with guest pianist Kenny Barron witnessed their love of music first hand. Over the course of two hours, TISQ played a variety of pieces by Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Kenny Barron, and many others. The second half of the program largely consisted of “Infusion”, a four-movement piece written by TISQ themselves. The four-movement work combined jazz and classical perfectly—it was structured in the way a classical genre quartet typically is, but allowed room for improvised solos. Cellist Mark Summer dutifully covers the cello, bass, and drum parts of the works, but everyone in the group routinely contributes percussive nuances. Whether it be playing at the frog and directly over the bridge, playing the instrument like a drum, or playing a rhythmic pizzicato line, TISQ has the percussion thing all figured out. Melodies and harmonies are passed around evenly between the members of the group, and Barron’s added texture made the performance more enjoyable than ever.

Though extremely polished and talented, the most amazing aspect of their playing is the passion they put into it. From the second-to-last row in the balcony I could see, feel, and hear TISQ’s love of music. The rarity of an occurrence like this is astounding. As a musician enters the professional and therefore cut-throat-competitive world, music becomes a tool for survival, not a love. With this harsh situation, the passion often dies. Hearing the stories of how a person used to love their musical vocation is gut wrenching. From the first note they played, it was obvious that this topic would never arise in a conversation with a member of the Turtle Island String Quartet.

Hearing jazz in a traditional string quartet format is amazing, and there truly is nothing like it. The jazz string quartet combines the fun, catchy, rhythmic, and improvisational aspects of jazz with the timbre, full-bodied harmonization, and intimacy of a classical quartet. This perfect combination of the best of both worlds is a must-hear for everyone, and the Turtle Island String Quartet is as polished and passionate as they come.

Stephen Scott: New Music for Bowed Piano

Stephen Scott is truly one of our current iconoclastic composers. Though his career has culminated to center around bowed piano works, Scott has a background in recorder, saxophone, and clarinet. He studied composition at Brown and the University of Oregon, and has done quite a bit of musical study in Africa. Many of his works are African influenced, and though the album discussed in this entry does not seem to be, it is. Scott met Steve Reich, one of the prepared piano kings, in 1970 while studying music in Ghana.
“New Music for Bowed Piano” is a culmination of ambient and meditative works for, of course, bowed piano. “Rainbows I”, with its rhythmic and melodic intensity, is definitely the selection with the highest verve-factor, but each of the six pieces has their own unique texture and ambience. The other pieces on the album tend to be less melodic and more based around an ambient, pulsating chordal texture. There is not a complete lack of rhythmic interest-- it is just more dispersed than the demeanor portrayed in “Rainbows I”.
Since Scott composes for bowed piano, he also creates bows, bowing techniques, and choreography for the performances of his pieces. In “New Music for Bowed Piano” Scott's musicians used popsicle sticks with rosined horsehair attached to them. The rhythmic passages of the piece are based around a staccato style, so Scott trained his musicians to play the music with abbreviated wrist flicks. In order to perform each one of Stephen Scott’s pieces, the musicians must use a strict pattern of choreography in order to avoid becoming tangled in one another while in concert.
When all is said and done, the vast amount of work that must go in to making a bowed piano performance possible is truly worth it. You’ll never see anything else like it.