Turtle Island Quartet honors Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker’s jazz

In light of its history, it’s no surprise the Turtle Island Quartet chose to pay homage to the work of jazz saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker in its new CD and current tour — both named Bird’s Eye View.

The bebop master, who died in 1955, is credited with taking jazz from its popular big-band roots into its own as a masterful American music idiom. Parker laid the groundwork for innovators like Miles Davis, John Coltrane and dozens of other greats to follow.

The Turtle Island Quartet was established in San Francisco in 1985 by violinist David Balakrishnan. He wanted a group to explore the crossover possibilities of traditional string-quartet forms with jazz, bluegrass and other forms of Americana, says Balakrishnan, who serves as the group’s composer.

“From the get-go, all the original Turtle Island members were trained jazz musicians,” Balakrishnan says. “We started playing these tunes that hit a sweet spot in the culture because we are able to mine the great American musical canon.”

Balakrishnan and his three fellow performers bring their interpretation of the music of Parker and other jazz masters to the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center Feb. 16. Joining him onstage will be Alex Hargreaves, violin; Malcolm Parson, cello; and Benjamin von Gutzeit, viola.

Parker, the ‘Beethoven of jazz’

Despite what some may realize, commonalities exist between classical works and the jazz of Parker and John Coltrane. It was a 2007 version of the latter’s A Love Supreme that earned Turtle Island one of its two Grammy Awards.

On this tour, it was time to explore Parker.

“Charlie Parker was the Beethoven of jazz,” Balakrishnan says. “Beethoven took music from the Classical period into the Romantic period, and Parker took pop music and big-band swing and developed the advanced harmonies that you can hear in late Romantic and 20th-century classical composers.

“And if that’s true, then Coltrane was the Stravinsky of jazz because he took jazz the next step to include polytonality and modal music that defined an even newer era.”

From rock to jazz to Turtle Island

Balakrishnan started learning the violin at age 9 at his mother’s request, but listened to very little classical music. His heart was in rock ’n’ roll, and he still remembers the night that changed his life.

“When I was 14, I went to the L.A. Forum to see Jimi Hendrix play,” he says. “I just remember my mouth hanging open, and I thought, ‘Man, I have to try this,’ and I started playing blues and rock licks on the violin.”

Balakrishnan noted that electric guitar players often use their amps to create sustained notes, much like those of a violin. The young musician’s continued exploration started changing the way he thought, and opened his mind to new ideas.

“Classical music requires so much concentration and discipline that you lose your ability improvise, to play off the page,” he explains.

“We can all solo, improvise over changes and play the melody lines, but we don’t have a rhythm section,” Balakrishnan notes. “The cello is a smaller version of a string bass and that’s the one instrument that can partially fill the gap.”

However, there is an upside to not having anyone pounding the skins.

“When you play true jazz violin, you usually have to use a pickup or other electronic application, and that creates a different sonic quality that is less pleasing,” Balakrishnan says. “We get to live and play in the sonic world of the lovely acoustics in which our instruments do best, and we don’t have to sacrifice any of that to be heard over a drummer.

“The result is this beautiful synthesis of European string quartet traditions while using the language of American music, specifically jazz,” he adds. “What’s more, people really liked what we were playing.”

‘Advanced harmonies’

The concert’s iconic Parker classics — such as “KoKo,” “A Night In Tunisia,” and “Dewey Square” — are juxtaposed with original responses by Turtle Island members and intertwined with other pieces from the bebop era and beyond. Those numbers include Sonny Rollins’ “Airegin,” “Miles Ahead” by Gil Evans and Miles Davis, and “Subconscious-Lee” by Lee Konitz.

The South Milwaukee playlist also includes one of Balakrishnan’s own compositions, “Aerolatiscity: Harmonies of Impermanence,” named after a book written by his late father, who was a mathematician and engineering professor at UCLA. The book, which examines the role air currents play during flight, spoke to the composer, and the results fit nicely with the largely Parker program of the current tour.

“I was struck by how the music related to Charlie Parker did for me,” Balakrishnan says. “It has its source in the language of advanced harmonies that Parker used, and its guts and soul came from the jazz vernacular.

“The ‘bird’s eye view’ concept gave us a way to wrap it up in our current performance,” he adds. “Really, it’s my life’s work.”

On Stage

On Feb. 16, the Turtle Island Quartet brings Bird's Eye View to the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center, 901 15th Ave., South Milwaukee. Tickets are $30-$45 general admission, $25-$40 for seniors, 60-plus, and $10-$20 for students. Tickets can be purchased by calling 414-766-5049 or on the web at southmilwaukeepac.org.