Not all string quartets are created equal. Some groups play it safe, performing standard repertoire straight off the page. Others, like the New York-based PUBLIQuartet, walk on the wilder side. The band's musical journey, which routinely includes improvisation, ranges widely on its new album Rhythm Nation.
The band's musical appetite, which routinely includes healthy portions of improvisation, ranges widely on its new album Rhythm Nation—from West African and Venezuelan styles to modernist complexity, jazz standards and several nods to Janet Jackson.
The PUBLIQuartet, like scores of other freethinking ensembles, probably would not exist if it weren't for the pioneering Kronos Quartet, which, more than five decades ago, staked its claim on the fringes of classical music, commissioning new works and searching far outside the U.S. for musical inspiration. Since it was founded in 2010, The PUBLIQuartet has taken a page from the Kronos playbook and run with it.
Indeed, it's one of Kronos' 50 for the Future commissions, Sunjata's Time by Malian composer Fodé Lassana Diabaté, that opens Rhythm Nation. The suite of three pieces tells the story of Sunjata Keita, the princely warrior who founded the Empire of Mali in 1235. Diabaté wrote it for his own instrument, the balafon, a type of marimba with rosewood keys and resonating gourds.
In this string quartet arrangement (by Kronos arranger Jacob Garchik), you can hear the buzz of the balafon replicated in cello double stops and hints of that other West African standby, the kora, in accompanying pizzicato.
The PUBLIQuartet thrives on agility and adventure. In 2016, they improvised, live on TV, a soundtrack for the presidential debate between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. These days, they're asking composers to write for them, like Eddie Venegas, the Venezuelan violinist whose Cachumbambeando en clave is a syncopated, groove-laden showcase, grounded by cellist Hamilton Berry, with a sparkling solo from violist Nick Revel.
This album displays the PUBLIQuartet's full range — juxtaposing global beats, like those of Diabaté and Venegas, with the rigor of Pulitzer-winning jazz composer Henry Threadgill's Sixfivetwo, another Kronos commission. Threadgill drops us into abstract territory, with slithering figures, percussive spasms and brief thickets of pointillist notes popping up like whack-a-moles. And still, there's room for improvised solos, including one that shifts from uncommon delicacy to funky swagger in the hands of violinist Curtis Stewart, who is carving out a distinctive career of his own, championing neglected concertos by Black composers.
Rhythm Nation borrows its title from Janet Jackson's 1989 album, which, for PUBLIQuartet violinist Janinna Norpoth, was an ear-opening manifesto of inclusion. The players riff on some of Jackson's songs in short interstitials, which fall flat to these ears.
Far better is the extraordinary Baobab by Jlin, the electronic wizard from Gary, Ind., who sampled some of the quartet's music to form a percussive landscape that the players improvise over live. It begins with a gritty, rusty-toned glissando, like a creaky door opening a treasure box of surprises. The spirit of African drumming fuels its propulsive groove.
This appealing album unspools like a smart mixtape, making the argument that the story of American music is built on a multitude of different beats. From Daniel Bernard Roumain's Hip-hop Etudes to Duke Ellington's "Come Sunday," a new work by neurodivergent composer Mazz Swift and a lovely commission from Jeff Scott, Blues for Buddy, which saunters along somewhere between a tango and a flamboyant New Orleans-style processional.
The genteel string quartet of 18th-century Haydn and Mozart is barely recognizable in the PUBLIQuartet. And that's just fine. The band commissions music, curates it innovatively and performs it fearlessly. That's what we need in our string quartets today.
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