EXCERPT FROM CONCERT REVIEW

Turtle Island Quartet: A Tribute to John Coltrane
NC State University and Raleigh Chamber Music Guild

By Karen E. Moorman

January 28, 2012 – Raleigh, NC:

The first half of the concert was a colorful set that ranged from Latin Jazz master Paquito D’Rivera’s “Wapango” to TIQ’s versions of Coltrane’s arrangement of Rogers’ “My Favorite Things” and Jimi Hendrix’s version of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.” The works on the second half are recorded on their CD A Love Supreme. Together, we heard the musical context in which Coltrane’s suite of that name can be situated. And all the works performed bore the stamp of this marvelous quartet.

for the full review, please go to Classical Voice North Carolina CVNC’s site.

Turtle Island Quartet to perform in Ojai
To ‘Electric Ladyland
January 19, 2012 at 3:14 p.m.

The Turtle Island Quartet will salute Jimi Hendrix in Ojai, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.

Two violins, a cello and a viola will take audiences to Jimi Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland” on Saturday night in Ojai.

The Grammy-winning Turtle Island Quartet, which energizes the traditional chamber repertoire by exploring jazz, funk, folk, rock, hip-hop and world music, will play a tribute to Hendrix as part of the Fresh Roasted Concerts series in Ojai.

Taking its name from Native American mythology, the group has won two Grammy Awards for classical crossover album: “4+Four” (shared with the Ying Quartet) in 2005 and “A Love Supreme: The Legacy of John Coltrane” in 2007.
According to The New York Times, in 1969, TIQ violinist and founder David Balakrishnan, then a teenager, went to a Jimi Hendrix concert “that led him to reconsider his approach to his instrument, and to music more broadly.”
Balakrishnan, along with violinist Mads Tolling, cellist Mark Summer and violist Jeremy Kittel, will play four pieces from Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland” album, a solo cello version of “Little Wing” and “Hey Joe.” The program also includes Balakrishnan’s “Tree of Life,” a tribute to Charles Darwin.

Chamber music has indeed evolved.

The Turtle Island Quartet will play at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Matilija Auditorium, 703 El Paseo Road, Ojai. Tickets are $30 for general admission, $28 for seniors. Call 646-8907 or visit ptgo.org. The group also will perform at 7:30 tonight at Theatre Raymond Kabbaz in Los Angeles ($35; 310-286-0553 or www.theatreraymondkabbaz.com) and 3 p.m. Sunday at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art ($19; 963-4364 or sbma.net). TIQ’s website is turtleislandquartet.com.

When people ask me what kind of music I like, I borrow an answer from Duke Ellington. “Good.” Last night, Strathmore Music in the Mansion presented the Grammy Award-winning Turtle Island Quartet in two performances of “Have You Ever Been ….?” the music of Jimi Hendrix and David Balakrishnan. It was an experience, and it was a very, very “good” one at that.

Turtle Island String Quartet. Photo by Jay Blakesberg.
The Turtle Island Quartet won their Grammy Awards in a category called ‘Best Crossover Album,’ but I’m not sure I would define their music as crossing over. It’s more like a dive into an experience of infused inspiration, heavy on the infusion, and a spiritual and musical journey like no other.

The Turtle Island Quartet is a chamber string ensemble whose members all have extensive conservatory training at such renowned institutions as the Cleveland Institute, UCLA, the Berklee School of Music, the University of Michigan, and the Manhattan School of Music. They know their stuff, and their stuff has set them free. All four members are masters at improvisation, composition and arranging, and their cutting edge musicianship attracts collaborations and followers as eclectic as they are, including Yo-Yo Ma, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, Paquito D’Rivera, The Manhattan Transfer, the late Billy Taylor, Neeme Järvi and the Detroit Symphony, Ramsey Louis, Sharon Isbin, and many others. Their fan base, like their music, is the world.

Experiencing music in a small venue such as Strathmore’s Mansion is somewhat like spending an evening in an intimate jazz club. I loved walking through the doors of the mansion, admiring the artwork, sipping a complimentary glass of wine, and joining the eclectic group of people there. From young couples in their teens and early twenties, to two elderly ladies well into their eighties, and everybody in between, all were clearly and thoroughly enjoying a very special evening. Besides hearing great music, everybody had a chance to chat with the artists who comprise the Turtle Island Quartet, and they are as nice as they are talented.

The group is the brainchild of founder David Balakrishnan, a violinist who grew up in Los Angeles with an Indian father, an American mother, a violin, and the influence of Jimi Hendrix, bebop, jazz, and more. He was raised in an eclectic environment, and it seems the success he has achieved through his musical endeavors only sparks his boundless curiosity and desire to explore even more in his music. He is brilliant.

Jeremy Kittel (viola), the youngest member of the group, has an endearing smile and engaging personality that reminds me of Ron Howard when he was still Opie. This only serves to endear him even more to his audience as he lets go with inspired and seemingly effortless improvisations that leave all in awe and wishing that he would just keep playing all night. He is simply a joy, and a musician bursting with talent of huge proportion that is clearly and visibly appreciated by his fellow musicians as much as it is by his audience.

Mads Tolling (violin), is perfect in the important role of holding together what Balakrishnan describes as a “bi-polar” group of musicians. A very talented musician and arranger, he has a beautiful sense of harmony, and he knows how to support what is happening without getting in the way of what is happening. He’s a connector, yet when he takes his turn in the spotlight, his ability and right to be there is without question.

Mark Summer (cello), a founding member of Turtle Island, is an experience in and of himself. He holds and plays a single cello, but appears to be filling in for a missing bassist, guitarist, percussion ensemble, and entire classical string section who perhaps missed their plane and are not available to play. Simply amazing, he exudes personality, musical versatility, talent, and a personal joy in playing.

I would like to highlight songs I particularly enjoyed, but to be honest, I have decided I cannot choose. I highly recommend this group. Their CDs are wonderful and available for purchase via the Turtle Island website. They’ll be back in town on March 2nd, performing at the George Mason University Center for the Arts. Don’t miss them.

Turtle Island’s Voodoo Children Pay A Visit to Electric Ladyland
The groundbreaking string quartet plays the music of Jimi Hendrix this Friday at Strathmore.
By Sriram Gopal

Turtle Island’s Voodoo Children. Photograph by Jay Blakesberg

In just two years, Jimi Hendrix recorded three studio albums that turned rock-and-roll on its ear and made an icon out of a man who was just in his mid-twenties. With 1967’s Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold as Love, Hendrix created the archetypal guitar god, in whose path every subsequent axe slinger would follow. And in 1968, he recorded what was meant to be his magnum opus but turned out to be his swan song. Though somewhat uneven, Electric Ladyland showcased the true breadth of Hendrix’s talents and gave his devotees a hint of what might have come, if not for the overdose that killed him in 1970.

Though Hendrix’s career and life were tragically short, his music still resonates 40 years after his death. This Friday’s concert at the Mansion at Strathmore featuring the Turtle Island String Quartet illustrates the true extent of Hendrix’s influence. The group is performing in support of its latest release, Have you Ever Been . . . ?, which puts many of Hendrix’s classic songs into an entirely new context.

The project is the brainchild of David Balakrishnan, Turtle Island’s founding member. “I actually got to see Hendrix play live in LA when I was 15,” says Balakrishnan. “He had a huge impact on me.”

Balakrishnan formed Turtle Island in 1985 as a vehicle for the music he was composing while in graduate school at Antioch University West. The current lineup consists of Balakrishnan and Mads Tolling on violin, Jeremy Kittel on viola, and Mark Summer on cello. As Hendrix did with rock music, Turtle Island has turned the notion of a classical string quartet on its ear. In 2007, the quartet reinterpreted saxophonist John Coltrane’s masterpiece A Love Supreme. The ensemble has also delved into Brazilian music and has collaborated with musicians as diverse as Latin jazz legend Paquito D’Rivera, the late Billy Taylor, and a host of others. Through all its success, Turtle Island has retained its basic aesthetic, which is to respect the foundational tenets of classical music while adding contemporary and spontaneous elements.

“From early on, I wanted to write string quartet music for people like me, who were trained in classical music but could also improvise,” Balakrishnan explains. “When you improvise, you’re actually using a different part of your brain.”

Electric Ladyland proved to be a good starting point for Turtle Island to explore Hendrix’s music, largely because of the way the album was recorded. His previous work was mostly based on the basic power trio format. On Ladyland, he began to utilize overdubbing to a greater extent, creating a layered and textured sound that translated well to a string quartet format. Turtle Island created arrangements of classic tracks like “All Along the Watchtower,” “Gypsy Eyes,” and “Voodoo Child (Slight Return).” In addition, the group covered earlier hits such as “Little Wing” and “Hey Joe.” Have you Ever Been . . . ? also features a four-part suite composed by Balakrishnan, which will be part of Friday’s program. Balakrishnan notes that creating original music is a central component to Turtle Island’s DNA, as much as bringing in nontraditional influence.

“Turtle Island started off and remains as a place to compose original music,” he says. “All the great composers listened to all of the music around them. What we do is just the next step.”

The Turtle Island String Quartet performs at 7:30 and 9:30 PM on Friday, November 18, at the Mansion at Strathmore. Tickets ($30) are available through Strathmore’s Web site.

Turtles gather outside the Holiday Inn in Lincoln to van it to the airport.
It has been a great week of traveling through Nebraska. Great concerts, lec-dems, and workshops. But now, it’s time to go home. Last night we said goodbye to our driver and guide, Ciara McCormack and our soundman supreme Brandon Ketchem. Ciara drove the whole week, and took us to amazing places such as the Scotts Bluff National Monument and Carhenge in Western Nebraska, and let’s not forget the little town of Funk.
Brandon set us up at each venue, which meant an hour more of precious sleep in many cases. Both helped make this trip easy and joyful. I hope we get to work with both of them again soon.

For now, the Turtles scatter to the wind.
Mads is going to the Bahamas for a four day cruise, Mark is back at the ranch in Novato, watching his neighbors’ horses and dealing with two teenage girls and their collective angst. Dave is home in Albany, composing, always composing. And Jeremy? No one really knows.

Our next tour stop on the Turtle Island never-ending tour takes us right back to the Midwest. We’ll be playing Indianapolis, Indiana at the Clowes Memorial Hall at Butler University with the Luna Negra Dance Theater in a program called “Danzon”. Hope to see you all there! Let me know if you enjoyed this blog!

We’re off to Holdrege to do a lec-dem and another Coltrane show. We started the morning with a “Sting Quartet Is Like A Family” presentation in Kearney, at the same hall we performed at the night before.
It sure makes it easy when we don’t have to pack up after a concert. And of course, the next morning is a breeze. After stopping at an excellent Chinese buffet, we’re barreling down highway 44, flanked by dried up corn stalks.

We arrived at the Tassel, our concert hall in Holdrege with just enough time to get the sound up before several hundred children filed in. As always, they were quite excited to hear us. Jeremy got them all riled up with his fiddle playing on the viola; he had to play extremely quietly to get them to stop clapping so loud that they all but drowned him out. I played “Julie-O”, one of my pieces for solo cello and got a good reception.

Yesterday was amazing. We performed for what sounded like a zillion 4th and 5th graders in the Scottsbluff area at the Midwest Theater, and then high tailed it to a local Mexican restaurant.
Home made corn tortillas were the feature, along with some very good chicken soup, tacos, shrimp, etc etc. Then we drove the 2 hours to Chadron in Western Nebraska. Our trip took us by Carhenge, an art instillation that uses junked cars in all sorts of interesting ways. We walked around and thoroughly enjoyed both the artwork and the Nebraska sunshine. It was cold in the late afternoon, but the sun was dazzling, with breathtaking vistas of the surrounding prairie.

October 19th, 2011

It’s 9 AM, and we’re taking our longest drive of the trip, from Chadron to Kearney. Supposed to take 5 hours.
We’ll see how that goes. I’ve got my own bench seat this time around, so I can spread out and get comfortable. I’m already thinking of how I’ll spend my time home before we hit the road again November 3rd.

Our first stop took us to a pretty cool gas station. Apparently the owner’s wife is into health foods, because they were selling big bags of bee pollen. I passed on it, but did take an informational pamplet. Seems a teaspoon a day will cure whatever ails you. I bought a small of scented rock salt for the bath. It was only a buck. Can’t beat that. After a hard day in the van, and then a concert, a bath will be theraputic.

After stopping in the town of Ogalalla for lunch at the Home Made Heaven Sandwich Shop, (pretty good sandwiches, great sweet potato chips) we drove onto Highway #80. Immediately, the scenery changed. It was much less interesting than the two lanes we were driving on before. There are still hills but they are in the distance where before they were closer to the road and more dramatic. #80 follows the Platte River, which flows to the east. We’ve got a tight day ahead of us. We won’t arrive until neavly 4:30, which doesn’t give us much time to sound check and eat dinner before a 7 PM show. That this is a different program than the ones we have been playing in Nebraska only adds to the tension.

Turtle Island’s big push into Nebraska began with a flight from Milwaukee to Denver, courtesy of United Express. I always have trepidations whenever we fly on small carriers, as I never quite know how they will deal with where to put my cello, Daphne. The quartet always buys a seat for her; indeed, if I had a dollar for every time I am asked if the airline lets me bring her on the plane for free, I’d have, well, a lot of dollars.

This time around, there were no hassles with either Daphne or the other instruments coming on board. The flight was pretty uneventful, aside from the inevitable bumps coming into the Denver International Airport. I’ve been making jokes all week about our week in Nebraska, but the truth is, you never know what a tour will be like until you get off the plane and into the van, so to speak. We’ll be sitting in a large cargo van all week, instead of the preferred two rental cars, but the cost of renting one way (we start the tour in Scottsbluff, and end in Lincoln) is prohibitive. As much as I understand the “one big happy family” aspect of being in a quartet, I dislike being crammed together in one vehicle. This time, we have a driver and at least one other passenger, so perhaps the vibe will be an interesting change from the usual. The members of this particular incarnation of Turtle Island manage to get along pretty well. Everyone has lots of electronic toys to plug into, so there are lots of headphones and computers taken out at the first sign of boredom. Last night we were all listening to Eminem, much to my horror. My retort to such situations is “two cars”.