Turtle Island on Tour in Germany
Melding jazz with chamber music, and discovering kindred spirits
Courtesy Turtle Island
Dear Reader,
My recent trip to Germany and Austria began with an exercise in frustration. After schlepping my cello, computer bag, and another carry-on bag to three different gates at the San Francisco airport, and sitting on a plane for more than two hours, my flight to Frankfurt was delayed (airline speak for canceled) until the next day. We always build an extra travel day into our schedule for this very reason, so at least I made it in time for our first concert in Villingen-Schwenningen on the eastern edge of the Black Forest in Northern Germany.
All totaled, I had sat on a plane for 11 hours; waited in the train station for two-and-a-half hours; threw all my baggage onto a train and sat for two hours; met my driver and sat in a van for another two hours; played a sound check two hours after I arrived; and performed a concert a few hours later! By the time I made it to bed, after a somewhat subdued concert, I was shaking from a stressful, yet exhilarating, day—not to mention a nine-hour time change.
This is the part they don't tell you about in music school.
One of the things the Turtle Island Quartet has done for 23 years is to take the music of jazz legends—such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, and others—and present their greatest works within the context of a classical-music concert. We feel somewhat successful at it; earlier this year, we received our second Grammy Award in the Classical Crossover category for a tribute to John Coltrane. The concert-hall setting seems to help transform our music into something that sits comfortably alongside such classical composers as Beethoven and Mozart.
