When you think of jazz, the violin, viola or cello probably won’t come to mind. But the Turtle Island Quartet is out to change the way you think about jazz. The group, which won a Grammy for Best Classical Crossover Album in 2006, plays jazz as a traditional string quartet. The group will bring its hybrid sound to the Quick Center this Friday.
Mark Summer, the group’s cello player, said, “We are trying to have our cake and eat it too. We are trying to take advantage of this 300-year history of the string quartet as well as the fact that we all love to improvise.”
All the members of the Quartet have backgrounds in classical music but said they always felt a pull to do something new and different.
Summer was trained at the Cleveland Institute of Music and joined a symphony only to find it unsatisfying.
“After working in the orchestra for three years, I realized I just wasn’t cut out to be in an orchestra. It wasn’t for me,” he said. “It is kind of the story of a lot of members of this group: classically trained but wanting to be mavericks, wanting to do something different.”
The Quartet will be performing “A Love Supreme: A Tribute to John Coltrane,” a show based off the group’s most recent album, “A Love Supreme.” The album features John Coltrane’s four-part suite, “A Love Supreme.”
For the Quartet, playing Coltrane is important not only because he is a legend, but also because he was a maverick always exploring new territories in jazz.
“John Coltrane was kind of a restless soul, always wanting to push the boundaries of what jazz is, what he can do on the instrument; he would pay these 45-minute solos,” said Summer.
Coltrane is not unlike the Quartet: both are individualists pushing the boundaries of music. What Coltrane did for jazz, the Quartet is doing for string quartets.
Transferring the jazz music to traditional string quartet format may seem like a big leap, but the Quartet has maneuvered around the obvious barriers of sound and improvisational elements.
“The thing is about our quartet, we figured out how to imitate the sounds of all the instruments in a jazz combo,” said Summer.
Switching the music to jazz quartet also adds a new element: ability for each instrument to trade off parts.
“In a [jazz] combo everybody has a defined role: the drummer is not the pianist and the pianist is not the drummer,” said Summer. “[But] in our group, pretty much all the roles are passed around. Even the viola plays some baseline and the cello plays some melodies and some solos.”
The Quartet is not merely an imitation of the original pieces. It not only brings a softer feel to the music but also gives it a subtle, yet strong, power.
Summer said he hopes that their music will “give you insights into the original piece and make you want to hear the original piece.”
For most, this has been the most powerful thing for the group: the ability to bring jazz to people who might never have listened to it.
“I’ve seen older audience members who would never listen to John Coltrane, say, ‘I can’t believe I liked it but I liked it.’ That’s really the power of our group: bringing this music to people who would never listen to jazz,” he said.
For some listeners, this may be the first time they have heard Coltrane.
“That’s an interesting moment; to realize that people are going to hear this music for the first time and it is going to be on string quartet, not the original instrumentation and the original composer. You have a certain responsibility to present it well. It’s a real honor,” said Summer.
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