Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » The Wild Strings Quartet: The Wild Strings Quartet

132

The Wild Strings Quartet: The Wild Strings Quartet

By

View read count
The Wild Strings Quartet: The Wild Strings Quartet
England’s Wild Strings Quartet has produced a wonderful eponymous album that's perfect for Sunday mornings. The music is jazz-based, but a strong classical approach and some occasional ambient leanings shape its character. The acoustic Quartet offers several John McLaughlin pieces, a stunning tribute to Paco DeLucia and a few original compositions.

The McLaughlin pieces, such as the opener, “Trilogy,” mostly come from his Mahavishnu period and are treated with love and respect. In fact, if you were not aware of their lineage, you may think these tunes were forms of modern Baroque. It is doubtful that any improvisation took place when the tunes were treated in this manner. They are very impressive nonetheless. Especially pleasing on these numbers is the bass of Ron Savage, that seems to be the buoy that lifts the music.

The tribute to Paco DeLucia, “A Paco,” is the most inspired piece on the album. The guitars of Anderson, Philip Gibbs and Ale Fernandez are very strong throughout this tune as it builds to a fiery climax. The spirit of Flamenco as well as Paco’s particular approach to it are captured succinctly.

The album has its flaws. While the band’s original tunes are clearly inspired, they do suffer from an overuse of ambient atmospherics that make those sections of the music somewhat arid. While they still have worthwhile moments, a paring down of these tunes would have produced better results.

The album comes to a close with an exciting interpretation of McLaughlin’s “Lila’s Dance”. The band stretches out its improvisations in the funk rave-up section of the piece. A strong voice throughout much of the album, Peter Evans’ violin almost steals the final tune.

The album is dedicated to John McLaughlin and Paco DeLucia. Their influence is dripping out of the pores of this music. The Wild Strings Quartet may not be quite as wild as its name suggests, but its approach to music is reverentially refreshing .

The Wild Strings Quartet CD is available at www.foxyproductions.co.uk .

Track Listing

Trilogy; Pastoral; A Paco; Inspiration; Los Muros Lagrimas; Dietro Via Zanon; Lila's Dance

Personnel

Marco Anderson- guitar, synths; Philip Gibbs- guitar; Ale Fernandez- guitar; Peter Evans- violin; Basira Ward-Davies- vocals; Ron Savage- bass

Album information

Title: The Wild Strings Quartet | Year Released: 2002 | Record Label: Foxy Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.