Soldier String Quartet

Last updated

The Soldier String Quartet was a string quartet, founded in 1984 by composer and violinist Dave Soldier, that specialized in performing a fusion of classical and popular music. [1] The quartet proved a training ground for many subsequent experimental classical groups and performers, including violinists Regina Carter and Todd Reynolds, and performed at venues ranging from the classic punk rock club CBGBs [2] to Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center. [3] [4]

Contents

From 1984 to 2004, in addition to a large repertoire of original compositions and transcriptions of blues, jazz and hip-hop by Soldier, the group premiered over 100 compositions including major works by Teo Macero, Leroy Jenkins, Phill Niblock, [5] Zeena Parkins, Fred Frith, Jonas Hellborg, Elliott Sharp, Alvin Curran, and Ivan Wyschnegradsky.

They also performed and recorded with many rock, pop, and jazz acts including Guided by Voices, Van Dyke Parks, Jesse Harris, Butch Morris, Tony Williams, Lambchop, Bob Neuwirth, Bill Laswell, Ric Ocasek, Amina Claudine Myers, Plastic People of the Universe, Lee Ranaldo, Joanne Brackeen, Myra Melford, Sussan Deyhim, and Lenny Pickett. From 1992 to 1998 the Soldier String Quartet were the touring and recording group with John Cale and occasional other members of the Velvet Underground [6] often supplemented with steel guitarist B.J. Cole. [7] The arrangements for the Cale group, written by Soldier, include his metal violin solos on "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Fragments of a Rainy Season".

The quartet helped introduce transcription and arrangements of previously unnoted music to the chamber music repertoire, including a CD of arrangements of Jimi Hendrix pieces led by flutist Robert Dick, and album of jazz standards also with Robert Dick, and an album of Delta and Chicago blues.

Performers

Discography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Zorn</span> American composer, saxophonist and bandleader

John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". His avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music. Rolling Stone noted that "[alt]hough Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he's gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Masada (band)</span>

Masada is a musical group with rotating personnel led by American saxophonist and composer John Zorn since the early 1990s.

Mark Dresser is an American double bass player and composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elliott Sharp</span> American composer and musician

Elliott Sharp is an American contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, performer, author, and visual artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zeena Parkins</span> American musician

Zeena Parkins is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist active in experimental, free improvised, contemporary classical, and avant-jazz music; she is known for having "reinvented the harp". Parkins performs on standard harps, several custom electric harps, piano, and accordion. She is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow and professor in the Music Department at Mills College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bobby Previte</span> American drummer

Bobby Previte is a drummer, composer, and bandleader. He earned a degree in economics from the University at Buffalo, where he also studied percussion. He moved to New York City in 1979 and began professional relationships with John Zorn, Wayne Horvitz, and Elliott Sharp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Kaiser (musician)</span> American guitarist, film director, and scientific diver

Henry Kaiser is an American guitarist and composer, known as an idiosyncratic soloist, a sideman, an ethnomusicologist, and a film score composer. Recording and performing prolifically in many styles of music, Kaiser is a fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. He is considered a member of the "second generation" of American free improvisers. He is married to Canadian artist Brandy Gale. He is the son of Henry J. Kaiser Jr. and the grandson of industrialist Henry J. Kaiser.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ned Rothenberg</span> American musician and composer

Ned Rothenberg is an American multi-instrumentalist and composer. He specializes in woodwind instruments, including the alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, and shakuhachi. He is known for his work in contemporary classical and free improvisation. Rothenberg is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He was a founding member of the woodwind trio New Winds with J. D. Parran and Robert Dick. He has performed with Samm Bennett, Paul Dresher, Fred Frith, Evan Parker, Marc Ribot, Elliott Sharp, John Zorn, Yuji Takahashi, Sainkho Namtchylak, and Katsuya Yokoyama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greg Cohen</span> American jazz bassist

Greg Cohen is an American jazz bassist who has been a member of John Zorn's Masada quartet and worked with numerous other noted musicians for over four decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Dick (flutist)</span> Musical artist

Robert Dick is a flutist, composer, teacher and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erik Friedlander</span> American cellist and composer

Erik Friedlander is an American cellist and composer based in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Feldman</span> American violinist

Mark Feldman is an American jazz violinist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julian Lage</span> American guitarist and composer (born 1987)

Julian Lage is an American guitarist and composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vince Bell</span> American singer-songwriter

Vince Bell is a Texas singer-songwriter who has appeared on the PBS television program Austin City Limits along with NPR broadcasts such as Mountain Stage, World Cafe and Morning Edition. His songs have been performed and recorded by Little Feat, Lyle Lovett and Nanci Griffith.

Kevin Norton is an American percussionist and composer active in the New York City jazz and contemporary music scenes. He has performed and recorded with a diverse group of musicians, including Anthony Braxton, Paul Dunmall, Milt Hinton, Fred Frith, David Krakauer, Joëlle Léandre, Frode Gjerstad, Wilber Morris, James Emery, Bern Nix, and many others. In 1999, he founded Barking Hoop Recordings, a record label dedicated to releasing new and original music. Kevin Norton has also spent summers at camp Encore/Coda in Maine teaching music theory classes and private percussion classes. The label has released 11 CDs to date, which feature Norton's own groups as well as artists such as Anthony Braxton, Kevin O'Neil, Billy Stein, and the String Trio of New York.

Jennifer Choi is a Korean-American violinist based in New York City. Choi graduated from the Juilliard School and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and has performed in a variety of settings including solo violin, chamber music, and creative improvisation and performed with the Oregon Symphony, the Portland Columbia Symphony, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, and the String Orchestra of New York City (SONYC) among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Sulzer</span> American neuroscientist and musician

David Sulzer is an American neuroscientist and musician. He is a professor at Columbia University Medical Center in the departments of psychiatry, neurology, and pharmacology. Sulzer's laboratory investigates the interaction between the synapses of the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia, including the dopamine system, in habit formation, planning, decision making, and diseases of the system. His lab has developed the first means to optically measure neurotransmission, and has introduced new hypotheses of neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease, and changes in synapses that produce autism and habit learning.

<i>Last Day on Earth</i> (album) 1994 studio album by John Cale and Bob Neuwirth

Last Day on Earth is a collaborative album between Welsh rock multi-instrumentalist John Cale, and American singer-songwriter Bob Neuwirth. It was released in 1994 on MCA Records. Recording of the album was completed in February 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Goldberg</span> American clarinet player and composer (born 1959)

Ben Goldberg is an American clarinet player and composer.

The Kropotkins are an American avant-garde music collective based in Memphis and New York City founded in 1994 by drummer Jonathan Kane and Dave Soldier, who is best known as a violinist but plays banjo in the group. Its other members have included Lorrette Velvette (vocals), Samm Bennett (percussion), Moe Tucker of the Velvet Underground, Mark Feldman (violin), Mark Deffenbaugh, Alex Greene and Charles Burnham (violin). The band is named after Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin. In 1999, the group had six members. Soldier had the idea to start the band while performing with John Cale at a concert in Germany; Soldier has described this idea as "a kind of epiphany."

References

  1. "Neuroscientist and Composer Dave Soldier Releases Two Collections via Mulatta Records".
  2. Pareles, John (September 9, 1987). "elliott-sharp-joins-string-quartet-at-cbgb". New York Times. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
  3. Kozinn, Allan (14 August 1993). "a-hybrid-of-styles-encourages-bopping". New York Times. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
  4. Ross, Alex (14 August 1993). "music-gospel-and-blues-strings-attached". New York Times. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
  5. Rockewell, John (20 January 1991). "avant-garde-group-flirts-with-an-uptown-ambiance". New York Times. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
  6. Powers, Ann (10 December 1992). "Pop and Jazz in Review". New York Times. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
  7. Pareles, John (27 September 1994). "john-cale-in-a-quiet-phase". New York Times. Retrieved 3 November 2013.

Further reading