Kronoscopy

Monk Suite
Pieces of Africa
Nuevo
Music of Bill Evans

Someone pointed out that the Kronos Quartet covers three general areas of music – minimalists, world/ethnic, and tragic Eastern Europeans. I have several of their minimalist recordings – it's the one school of post-WWII academic music that I enjoy (Glass, Reich, Riley, and others). At their best, minimal compositions are meditative without being banal or soporific (which they are at their worst), and the densely layered sound textures that the composers ring subtle changes against have a strong appeal to me. There's something essentially urban about it, as if a city was singing its autobiography. I think that the music is best in compositions with more than a few voices, but there are exceptions, and Kronos has done several sets that work very well – but that's a subject for another day. As for the tragic eastern Europeans, I haven't delved into them enough to say anything useful about them; that's another future project.

Anyway, after listening to Caravan (see 'Tuning In" below), I decided to expand my exposure to Kronos by listening to some of their jazz work (they haven't done a lot of this, but it has an obvious interest to me as a jazz fan) and some of their other world/ethnic work. With that in mind, I spent some time with the four recordings listed at the beginning of this post.

Monk Suite: The Music of Thelonious Monk
This is one I wished worked better, but it doesn’t. Monk was a terrific jazz composer, but his pieces are inextricably tangled up with his performance – and in a genre where individualism flourishes, Monk was totally sui generis. The main problem here is that Monk’s pieces are based on his piano work, and his piano work was far more percussive than lyrical (except for the occasional piece like his one true standard, “'Round Midnight”). Strings just don’t cut it, even when they’re playing pizzicato (Ron Carter's bass on some tracks helps, but not enough - and those are definitely the best ones). But as a scientist friend once told me, just because an experiment doesn’t work doesn’t mean it was a waste of time. That’s true of this one.

Pieces of Africa
Given my strong liking of African music in its many forms, I was inclined to like this one, and I do. This is an excellent set in general that plays in several African ethnic grooves, assisted by some fine African musicians. The opening and closing pieces, by the late Zimbabwean musician and composer, Dumisane Maraire, are beautifully arranged and played, as is "Waterwheel" by Hamza El Din. This is a CD I’ll go back to.

Neuvo
Another hit for me, this one is a musical impression of Mexico City, opening with an intentionally warped (played that way - not an effect) and scratchy version of a well-known mariachi piece, “El Sinaloense”; the Kronos’ strings play the horn parts, and it feels like something you’d hear playing through the window of a dive cantina. Other pieces touch on a wide variety of Mexican music, ranging from a witty rendition of an Esquivel novelty to an extended sound collage anchored by Café Tacuba. Great stuff.

Music of Bill Evans
Another jazz experiment, and this one works far better. This makes sense because Evans - who had an academic background and who was influenced more by European classicists than by stride and blues-rooted piano styles - was a far more lyrical performer and composer than Monk, more in the mainstream of post-bop jazz (think "Kind of Blue"). As jazz performers, Kronos can swing decently if not seamlessly, and some of the sounds remind me of Joe Venuti and Stephane Grapelli. That’s praise, BTW.

All in all, a good set of discs, and another view of Kronos for me, beyond the Minimalist world they’re best known for. I doubt I’ll play the Monk again, but Nuevo and Pieces of Africa will go in my quadrennial rotation, and the Bill Evans will get some air time in a 5 CD random mix somewhere down the road.