Feb 15, 2008

Crossover Grammy winners 'already there'

'Trane takes Turtle Island sound to 'Supreme' place

By Paul Freeman / Entertainment Writer

The world's foremost jazz-oriented string quartet, the Bay Area's own Turtle Island Quartet, just snared another Grammy award. The group won Best Classical Crossover Album for their latest release, "A Love Supreme: The Legacy of John Coltrane."
Founding member David Balakrishnan, based in Albany, doesn't see himself as a crossover artist.

"I'm happy to have a category to win a Grammy in, but there's no way that we're crossing over. We're already there," Balakrishnan said.

"It's not like we're classical players who then decided to play jazz. That's a common misunderstanding. Improvising was something we did from childhood on. It is part of some string players' experience, that they develop improvisation - swing and jazz and bebop - alongside the classical."

There are classical musicians who can't play jazz, who are out playing jazz. "There's a certain spectacle to that," Balakrishnan said. "That's where genre-crossing gets a bad name. Who wants to see the Rolling Stones sing Vivaldi?" he said, with a laugh.

"Some musicians will stay put. But the ones I find the most inspiring are the ones that push the envelope."

The Turtle Island musicians certainly aren't dabbling. "We are thoroughly grounded in the jazz tradition," Balakrishnan said. "People can hear that we've done our homework."

Violinist Balakrishnan, who has a master's in composition, was drawn to the new album's title number, "A Love Supreme," because it represents a supreme challenge.

"Even Coltrane only played it a couple of times. Those four musicians (the John Coltrane Quartet) were onto something special. They were involved in a very concentrated meditation of sorts. It's not like they went into the studio and knew what they were going to play. It was completely unknown to them - very common for Coltrane to do that, that everything would just happen in the moment," Balakrishnan said. "That recording has such intensity of concentration, communication and exploration, from four genius musicians.

"The approach we took was - we're playing in a format that is known for an equally high level of reach (as in the works of) great masters such as Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn and onward. The string quartet was where they put their greatest, most inspired, most spiritual works. So we wanted to find a way to join the two, rather than play 'A Love Supreme' as a cover tune, so to speak."

Some purists might balk at this new interpretation. "I respect that, because you're tampering with something that's holy ground, for jazz musicians especially," Balakrishnan said. "But for the most part, we have an easier time than somebody who's covering it from the standard instrumentation, with saxophone, piano, drums and bass. In that context, in some ways, you're more trapped by the original. We have the advantage of being so far away interpretation-wise that we could never sound like an imitation."

People who know the piece experience Coltrane's melody in a way they never had before. "They can hear it's completely different sounding in some ways, yet it's his language," Balakrishnan said. "On the other side, people who don't know Coltrane's music, who maybe love the string quartet and have a feeling for 20th century classical tradition, will hear us do that and go, 'I want to go listen to that. I want to see what that is!' It gives them a door into understanding Coltrane.

"Many times, the audience that would be attracted to listen to a Ravel string quartet played by a great classical quartet will also know about Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis, because jazz and classical music occupy the same NPR channels these days. They're similarly regarded as a form of high art."

At their Stanford University concert on Saturday night, which will include the premiere of "Anika's Dream," a work commissioned by Stanford Lively Arts, Turtle Island will save "A Love Supreme" for the latter portion of the evening.

"We're careful when we present these things. It's demanding more of the listener than playing familiar jazz tunes like 'Blue Rondo A La Turk' or 'Round Midnight.' 'Love Supreme' has melodic content, but it's certainly not something you think of as a tune."

In every genre of music these days, there's pressure on artists to make music that people can listen to easily. "I'm much more interested in finding ways of combining styles and opening a wider palette, while maintaining a feeling of authenticity and honesty of expression," Balakrishnan said. "That means having experience playing in these various styles. So I'll use music from India - my father's from India - and I have a certain amount of bluegrass fiddle training I draw from and classical composition, rock 'n' roll and various forms of blues and jazz.

"I'm just looking for some way to express, through all those elements, unique story lines that transcend the actual elements themselves. Of course, that is not that easy to sell in the world. People like things in sound bite form."

Balakrishnan wants to delve deeply into the music, so that each concert experience is fulfilling. "You like to think people will come to see you, who aren't knowledgeable about music, and yet will still enjoy the concert," he said. "You also like to think that people who are very knowledgeable will be moved and understand on a profound level what we're about."

It's been an interesting journey for the quartet, who have recently been collaborating with vibes player Stefan Harris on reimagining Duke Ellington's music.

"We've been doing this for 23 years and I haven't changed much in all that time," Balakrishnan said. "I'm still fighting the same fight. I want people to experience Turtle Island for what I think it symbolizes - the concept and the approach should, at its highest form, match the greatest work of the greatest string quartets of our generation. That's the dream, that (the music) wouldn't be regarded as an aside or a departure, but as a natural, logical expansion into the present of the tradition itself. I hope history sees it that way.

"It's not just us. There's a community of string musicians who are interested in expressing themselves, in an authentic way, from a deep level of training, in a multi-stylistic framework," he said. "Ultimately, 20 or 30 years from now, it won't be considered a multi-stylistic framework. It'll be part of an evolution and will simply be known as a form of classical music. That's what I believe."