In the course of a conversation, violinist Darol Anger makes reference to Peruvian pan pipes; the similarity of Indian scales and blues riffs; the connection between Irish, Eastern European and Appalachian folk songs; and the street music of Ghana. It`s quite a range, considering that Anger performs in a format-the string quartet-traditionally confined to European classical music.
”The string quartet has sort of an elitist connotation, coming from the highest echelons of European culture, whereas a string band comes from mountain people, out of a folk culture,” Anger says. ”I see our group bringing the two streams together.”
Anger`s group, the San Francisco-based Turtle Island String Quartet, will play Saturday at Prairie Center for the Arts, 201 Schaumburg Rd., Schaumburg.
Turtle Island is best known for incorporating jazz material into its repertoire, but it also rearranges American blues. The group`s most popular request is the classic blues song ”Cross Roads.” Anger`s background is in bluegrass acoustic music, his having played fiddle in a string band with mandolinist Dave Grisman before forming the Turtle Island Quartet in 1982.
For Anger, playing jazz on classical instruments is not that much of a stretch. ”As Wynton Marsalis and others have said, jazz music is really an amalgam of Western European harmony-especially people like Ravel and Debussy- combined with African and Afro-American rhythms,” he says. ”There`s no reason jazz players can`t play classical, or that a string quartet can`t do jazz.”
To simulate the lively rhythm section of a standard jazz band, Anger says he and his cohorts draw from a bag of technical tricks. ”There`s the `chop,` where you can imitate the sound of a snare drum or a high hat by bringing the bow down vertically across the string,” he says. ”You can get a rhythm guitar kind of feel by popping the violin string on the upstroke.
The point of this hybrid approach is not to show off the group`s collective knowledge of musical genres, Anger says, but to create a sense of community in their audience. ”In our music, we combine different styles, but we like to emphasize what`s in common,” he says. ”For example, the sound of certain pieces of Indian classical music sound very much like Irish melodies.”
For its Prairie Center concert, the Turtle Island String Quartet, with Anger and David Balakrishnan on violins, Mark Summer on cello and Jeremy Cohen (who recently replaced Katrina Wreede) on viola, will perform original compositions along with jazz and pop standards from their new album ”On the Town.” Show time is 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $14, or $12 for senior citizens and students. Call 708-894-3600.
