popcorn youth

Dave Balakrishnan: It really was a shot in the dark, in a certain kind of way. I was trying to put together all of my influences that I had experienced — being classically trained, and very early along loving rock’n’roll — and then jazz and country and all these styles, and also Indian music from my father. I also studied classical composition very seriously. I started writing string quartet music for imaginary players like me in 1981, and it’s still pretty rare for a violinist to improvise, even more so for cellists or violas. It’s kind of like a barking cat, you just don’t think of it as improvising. (Laughs)

Popcorn Youth: What’s the balance between operating in a jazz and classical tradition?

Dave Balakrishnan: The jazz improvisational tradition is just as deep as the classical tradition [for us], an equal amount of study and dedication. The classical tradition is in its own way such a highly demanding and virtuostic style of music, so it’s a challenging and totally different way of making music. Of course, we made a career out of proving there’s a cross correlation. (Laughs) What kind of music would you write for a group where a cellist could groove like crazy, like could play fiddle music or jazz music or classical music — what would it be like to have four players like that?

Popcorn Youth: What was the reception like for that kind of new music? Was there an audience for it? Was it considered ‘acceptable’ string quartet music?

Dave Balakrishnan: I think the time was right for that approach. It wasn’t the first time — in the 50s and 60s, you had something called “Third Stream Music,” which was classical music mixed with jazz. But mostly those styles were just classical musicians who would play classical music and jazz musicians who would play jazz, and they would share a stage together. But Turtle Island is really the kind of group where you find the players really trying to blend the styles of the music themselves. And right away people could hear that in our playing. To introduce people to our sound, we’d play classic jazz pieces, like Dizzy Gillespie’s “Night in Tunisia” and Oliver Nelson’s “Stolen Moments” … and when audiences heard us playing these, right away people picked up that this was authentic. What happens when classical players play jazz from a classical standpoint, is that you really feel the absence of swing.

Popcorn Youth: Is that due to a lack of percussion or a drum kit?

Dave Balakrishnan: Absolutely not. One of the secrets of Turtle Island is that we figured out how to emulate the roles of percussion, bass and piano — what’s called the rhythm section — just using our instruments. The cello is obviously nothing more than a small bass. Mark Summer, our cellist, just takes that concept and goes 50 times further with it. He’s a remarkable player, it’s remarkable to hear what he can do. He’s classically trained on a high level, and at the same time he integrates a guitar approach and a bass approach and a drums approach, and he puts it all together, and it’s really rather remarkable. We build everything on top of that, definitely. Also some of the techniques that we use to create rhythm is from bluegrass music, where the fiddle in a bluegrass band has to play rhythm, and they play this technique called “the chop.” Very much like a rhythm guitar player playing a kind of percussive rhythm, but on a violin. You take the bow and use it at the frog, it is a very effective way to create the sound of the drums and the swing groove in the background. That’s a big secret for how we’ve been able to do this, to make it work— we could play these tunes and make it work without the help of drums or a bass player or a piano player — and have it sound like a real jazz group. And at the same time — and here’s the real secret — to treat it, integrate it with a traditional string quartet approach, so you’re not necessarily just hearing a gimmick, like “Oh, here’s the string quartet that plays jazz!” It’s deeper than that. We actually take a very serious look at what can be done from a compositional standpoint. And we like to play with the classical style, and all of the richness of the 200 year tradition of the string quartet.

Popcorn Youth: Were you ever interested in having an acoustic guitar join as part of your string quartet?

Dave Balakrishnan: Over the years, there have been periods where we were so frustrated trying to emulate the roles of the instruments, and it’s really hard to make it work sometimes. You go, “Why don’t we just get a guitar player?” But that would just take away the whole idea of the group, which is by not doing that, it forces us to be that much more creative on our parts. But what we do actually is collaborate with other musicians. And it’s funny you should say guitar, because of course we’re going to be collaborating with the Assad Brothers when we come to Ithaca to play. It’s going to be wonderful.

Popcorn Youth: How do you choose whom you’d like to work with?

Dave Balakrishnan: Our main focus is to make sure that we’re clear what we’re doing as a quartet. And the next step is how that would relate to other musicians that we admire and would like to work with. One of the ways that works is that we look for people with like minds — not necessarily the same, because then sometimes that could be not quite as compelling in some ways — and look for people in unlikely places, for example, playing with Paquito D’Rivera. Here’s a fellow from Cuba, a master jazz saxophonist. But the other thing about Paquito, he’s a great composer and a great stylist, and a great classical player as well, so he’s very much interested in some of the same ideas of stylistic integration that we are. And so then it becomes a very natural way to work with him and explore a wide range of styles. Sometimes it’s fun to go completely the opposite way, and work with very traditional classical players. We did a collaboration with the Ying Quartet — totally pure traditional string quartet —and yet we were surprised to find
out how much we had in common with them. Whether you’re playing Beethoven or you’re playing Chick Corea, for string players, some of the same issues came up. And that collaboration got us a Grammy last year.

Popcorn Youth: Obviously Turtle Island works in the tradition of many different kinds of music. Where do you see Turtle Island fitting in the continuum of jazz music, world music, and contemporary classical?

Dave Balakrishnan: That’s a hard question to answer, but lately we’ve just been taking the route where we’re getting acknowledged. Because what’s worked for us in our careers is that we’ve had more luck operating in the classical arena — bringing alternative styles to the classical world, where there’s so much support and community. There is such a strong community of string teaching in this country, and of orchestral playing. And the violin and the bowed string instruments are very important, and so it’s made more sense for us to go that route than to go the route of playing jazz clubs and going up against Herbie Hancock. (Laughs) We’re very much appreciated and enjoyed in the jazz community, and I want to make sure that’s clear, but audiences sometimes, I guess, will respond to us in a concert hall setting, where you’re actually enjoying the music from a toe-tapping sense. And in a jazz club, you’re already aware that you’re going to be tapping your toe with your neighbor… It’s just a different vibe, so that’s kind of the way we’ve found we work. And, I mean, the Grammy award we won was in this category “Classical Crossover.”

Popcorn Youth: So what does “Classical Crossover” mean to you?

Dave Balakrishnan: You know, categories will always be around — we need them, we use them — but they of course are made to be challenged. So the “Crossover” category is one of those new categories at the Grammys where they’re trying to deal with what’s happening, which is Yo Yo Ma playing with Mark O’Connor and all of these classical musicians playing in different styles. Traditionally, crossover was kind of a looked down upon genre.

Popcorn Youth: What does the “crossover” part imply?

Dave Balakrishnan: It’s a new thing, and it would be more defined by classical musicians playing non-classical music. And non-classical musicians playing classical music. And what’s happening on top of that, musicians who from the very get-go, integrate both approaches in what they play. It doesn’t just have to be jazz, of course, it could be world music or anything else. Any way that you’re starting to blur the lines, is how that’s happening. And so the origin of the category was rather banal — classical musicians playing something that would sound really awkward, trying to make money or something, they used to have a bad reputation. But now, many groups today would fall into that category and get nominated for that category: the Kronos Quartet, Yo Yo Ma, Bela Fleck — a great banjo player, but he’s like, “I’m playing Scarlatti on the banjo!” — these kind of things are so amazing.

Popcorn Youth: In that way, this category of “Classical Crossover” seems so huge because the people you listed seem so vastly different. It’s amazing that they can all find a home in a category and compete for the same award.

Dave Balakrishnan: (Laughs) It’s funny, because it’s a new category, so it’s not really as well defined or represented yet. This is definitely a little bit more confusing. It’s definitely thought of as a being a way to deal with classical groups looking to play non-classical music. We’re a string quartet and our base is basically classically trained and playing classical music. But at the same time, we’re clearly not classical players playing jazz, because we’re jazz players. As musicians, our first and foremost is playing string instruments with classical training. And many horn and piano players are equally trained in classical music, too. Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea playing a Mozart concerto, things like that. That’s just the nature of change. But I have to go back to the Assad Brothers, they’re a perfect example of classical crossover in my mind, hope they won’t mind me saying that (laughs), because they are two Brazilian fellows and are simply amazing classical guitarists, and yet they cover so much stylistic ground. And Sergio Assad is just a great, great composer, and so they’re a perfect pair for us.

Popcorn Youth: Were you aware of their presence in the music community in the late 80s?

Dave Balakrishnan: I wasn’t; what I would hear about them in the 80s was “Hey, there’s a really hot guitar duo, and they can play all sorts of styles, although they’re mainly classical,” and so I had only heard of them. My first hearing of them was when I saw them playing with Paquito D’Rivera. And when I saw them play live, I thought, “Ohhh, that’s what this is really all about!”

Popcorn Youth: Is there someone that you’d like a chance to do a collaboration with that you haven’t yet?

Dave Balakrishnan: Always. (Laughs) Always. I’d love to work with Yo Yo Ma, for instance. We know him and we’ve come close, but it just hasn’t worked out. I admire him so much and we all admire him so much. Edgar Meyer is another person whom I’d love to work with. Zakir Hussein, the great tabla player, if we could have a chance to work with him. I could go on and on … the great thing about this, too, is for instance, I just happened to have a chance to work with these great musicians, and I just have to pinch myself, you know? Our newest member, Mads Tolling, he’s our violist, he’s played with Stanley Clarke, the great jazz fusion player. Stanley Clarke was a great hero of mine,
and it’s been really exciting through Matt to hear about what Stanley’s been up to. I’d love to play with him some day. Our other violinist is a player who can play in any style, and he can play in the “Nuages” style, which is the style of Django Reinhardt. Being in this group, you come across so many great players just through the members themselves.

Popcorn Youth: Your string quartet doesn’t have a harpist, but has Alice Coltrane and her approach to free jazz influenced you at all?

Dave Balakrishnan: It’s weird you bring up Alice Coltrane — I was speaking with her over the phone last fall. She had actually called us to play on a gig but we couldn’t do it. It’s funny you are saying that, because the reason we were talking to her was because our new release is going to be the music of John Coltrane. And so we wanted to get her blessing, basically. She loved it and actually wrote some words about it. And it was so sad, I mean a real drag, coming out of … like, man, how does stuff happen this way? But I was so glad to have had the chance to
share our music with her. To have her know about us. She was really an amazing musician in her own way. And definitely the Coltrane style, the free style, and where Alice took it, it’s not a huge part of this group, because we’re trying so hard to honor the tradition of the string quartet, and that takes a lot. Its takes a lot of effort and focus, especially maintaining the sense of groove from jazz and swing music, and then the aesthetic of the sound of the four instruments in the classical style, and intonation and phrasing and these things. So free playing is another whole life’s work in and of itself. We do a little bit of it, but we’re not by any means experts at it.

Popcorn Youth: When you studied music composition, I’m sure you were thoroughly schooled in the long tradition of classical music, but did that also include the contemporary classical music of the 20th century?

Dave Balakrishnan: Oh, absoloutely, yes. When I was in UCLS in the 1970s my first composition teacher was a very serious, traditional, strong composer named Henri Lazarof — writing completely in the post 12 tone ear of non-tonal music. And here I am, an 18 year old kid, really coming from rock ‘n’ roll and someone who just had a natural attraction to the compositional aspect of things. And he introduced me to the idea of form, and also control, and just really inspired me and challenged me to go deeper into what could be done, what was done by the great composers and why it was so great. And then he was very clear about really not wanting to hear anything remotely tonal. (Laughs) But it was really great for me playing jazz. And jazz is another thing entirely. And it wasn’t until my masters program when I could get to the point where I could get to these various approaches, and also bring a dedication and love of the compositional approach. Which is, if you’re in a jazz band and you want to write a tune, you just write a melody and everybody plays it, right? You write a string quartet, if you’re a composer in the classical way, you’re spending months writing just because you’re really going deeply into the forms of things. And that’s what I really love about this group, is that we can really go into both sides. Sometimes the stuff we play really is just on a lead sheet, and sometimes it’s a thoroughly composed piece and mostly everything falls into place. Another thing about Turtle Island with the compositional aspect, is that all four of us are composers, which is natural for jazz musicians, as they tend to improvise and compose too.

Popcorn Youth: So you prefer to do a lot of collaborations?

Dave Balakrishnan: Oh, absolutely. If I write a piece, when I bring it to the group, I’m not like, “Oh, they must play every note!” No, there is negotiation and there can be change. And so the end product is more a reflection of the individuals as well. Sometimes we go as far where we compose together as a group, as a foursome, like on our new record, and that’s quite challenging, actually, to write a piece as a quartet, as opposed to me bringing a piece and presenting it to the group. Normally, with a string quartet, the composer brings his piece and the group plays it, period. Maybe some negotiation will go on, but with Turtle Island, everything is up for grabs.

We pride ourselves on being thoroughly trained as jazz improvisers. We’ll write chord progressions and solo over them and, you know, I’m not saying I’m on Sonny Rollins’ level, but who is? We can play “Giant Steps” and we can do all those chord changes — we’re all coming from that place, but so very often, people will not undertand that. We once got reviewed in the New York Times, they came to see our concert, and we played [Dizzy Gillespie’s] “Night in Tunisia” with totally free improvised parts, and the reviewer said, “Oh, it was amazing, marvelous, but too bad it was all written out!” A complete misunderstanding. He just couldn’t imagine that string players could improvise! So on one hand, that’s a great accomplishment that we could fool someone like that. But it can work against us, because to this to day, people have a hard time imagining that any string quartet players could improvise on the level of a jazz musician. That’s the basis of the group, though!

Popcorn Youth: Obviously music technology has changed a lot since you first began. How much have things lke computer software and digital recording environments affected Turtle Island String Quartet?

Dave Balakrishnan: It’s huge. Just as a composer, just having the chance to not write things out by hand, just having this stuff be readable! But beyond that, software has gotten so sophisticated — I can write out the music for a full orchestra and then hear it! It doesn’t sound very good (laughs), but it’s close enough that I can get an idea of what it sounds like because I present it to an orchestra. And that’s a huge advantage! Sometimes it’s a problem, because the technology is still limited, so it can limit you as a composer if you’re not too careful. Still, I’m sure Beethoven would be using this software if he had it. (Laughs) And the recording software, any musician will tell you, has gotten so inexpensive, and it’s such high quality recording, just in your living room — you can change things so much. It means that you can do so much more. And in some ways, that changed the music business. Now, so many more people are able to put out more music with an equally good sound.

Popcorn Youth: How have modern innovations in Internet distributions and promotion affected the world of classical music?

Dave Balakrishnan: Well, it’s interesting because in many ways it’s just graphically improved the quality of our situation. Now people can find out about us. At the same time, it also creates challenges, because it’s also much harder for people to find traditional venues like record labels to operate with because there’s so much more product being thrown out, and the modes of distribution have just completely changed. In that way, it’s been difficult for us because we’ve had to figure out how to cope with that. And it’s funny, because still we’re a string quartet, and still we’re bound by the gravity of that, you just can’t rush things with these four instruments — it takes time, you gotta practice together, you gotta rehearse — and so the Internet thing can be lickety split in nature. And we still find ourselves attracted to the more traditional format — recording in a nice hall, putting a lot of attention in that, and that means time and money and these kind of things. And in some ways, that protects us, I suppose, from falling prey to the way that these quick and dirty approaches can dumb down the quality of your product. That’s kinda what I see going on — it’s kinda like a lot of people throwing stuff at the wall. And sometimes you lose the foundation. But the good music always comes through, and I don’t want to be one of those people who’s like, “Oh, the good old days! In my day, you had to walk to school in the snow!” That kind of stuff. Because I do believe that that has always been the way — things are always changing.

Popcorn Youth: Do you distribute your CDs online?

Dave Balakrishnan: We’re on Telarc’s record label, and they’re a good example of a wonderful, well-respected record label that’s working hard to transition into this new climate. So they are definitely working on finding a way to sell our product on the Internet. But we’re doing it through them. One of the problems with the whole Internet thing, is it forces a musician to not only be a player, but to be a record executive — deal with all these aspects of production and distribution and promotion. And it’s hard to do all that, you need help. So it’s really helpful to have Telarc to partner up with, they can help us and we can help them. We have a publicity department and they’re really good. It’s a good match for us because they’re highly into high quality recordings.

Popcorn Youth: Are you involved in the production process?

Dave Balakrishnan: We have a producer now, so he helps us. But we have produced for many years, and for many years I sat in the producer’s chair, because there wasn’t anybody who understood what we were doing. But that’s changed. Our producer Tom Moore is phenomenal, he’s won Grammys and all that, and not only does he understand the multi-stylistic nature of the group, it’s such a relief to not have to be in that chair! Because just to have to play the violin in tune — oh my god, it’s really hard! (Laughs) And it’s nice to not have to think of everything else. And that’s what I think is important, some of the older methods of recording and producing are helpful because of that.

Popcorn Youth: So tell me a little bit about your program with the Assad Brothers.

Dave Balakrishnan: I’m really excited about it. One of the things we’re playing is a piece Sergio [Assad] wrote called “Djembe,” which is an African drum. It’s a marvelous piece which uses great crossrhythm. Which is perfect for Turtle Island — see, they write music perfectly for us, and this is very unusual for outside composers, to write music like that. They’re like brothers, fellow composers, [to us]. It really works, it’s great. And we’re playing a Chick Corea piece called “No Mystery” and then a solo piece of Verlano Porteno that’s really fun. One of the things about Turtle Island is that we’re really moving away from that traditional classical style. We’re doing a piece I wrote called “Darkness Dreaming,” from the way gypsy music comes to India. I was born in LA, and I have this love relationship with that kind Indian music.

Popcorn Youth: Do you guys play Indian ragas?

Dave Balakrishnan: Absolutely, and through me. Because from my childhood background, I used to play those records. “Darkness Dreaming” uses a raga at the beginning, but then it turns into a Stephane Grappelli/Django Reinhardt style. The gypsies came from India and then came here, and their music has a certain kind of exotic sound, and the reason it sounds exotic is because it came from India. And of course, Reinhardt was the ones who introduced it to jazz melodies.

We’ll alternate — we’ll start off the night as a quartet, and then we’ll play with the Assad Brothers, and in the second half the Assads start off as a duo and then bring us on. That way you really get a full meal, and it’s their individual thing and hear how we come together to play together.

And their family is amazingly talented. Their parents are both musicians, their kids are musicians, high level professional musicians, they actually tour as a family sometimes. Sergio’s daughter Clarice Assad is an award-winning composer herself and she wrote a wonderful Balkan folk music influenced piece that is just wild, it’s in 7/8 and it’s so hard to play, but so much fun. (Laughs)

Popcorn Youth: Have you found that because of your website you’ve increased recognition outside of North America, like Europe, Asia, South America? Is your reception there different from here?

Dave Balakrishnan: Some. We have the most success in Germany. That’s where the string quartet was born, and they totally get the joke. They get what we’re doing. We’ve played there many, many times. Mostly in Germany, Belgium, Austria, Italy, these kind of countries in the middle of the Europe. Some in Asia, once in Brazil, we’ve been going to Mexico recently, next summer or so. It’s just interesting because it speaks to what we were talking about earlier, is that a string quartet playing jazz, there’s still kind of the idea of, “how is that even possible?” There’s just a resistance there that we still have to climb over. But we seem to get plenty of work in America, so I guess I should relax and not complain so much. (Laughs) I’m not dying to go overseas every five seconds either, I guess. (Laughs)