The string quartet Brooklyn Rider, whose name is inspired by that of the Russo-German Blaue Reiter group of artists, has gained attention and audiences for its accessible performances and recordings, which reach far beyond the concert-music tradition for their source materials. With The Brooklyn Rider Almanac the group has commissioned short quartets from a variety of composers who come mostly from jazz and rock; these in turn were asked to base their pieces on a creative figure who had served as a muse in recent years. Some, such as progressive bluegrass singer/songwriter Aiofe O'Donovan (William Faulkner) and jazz guitarist Bill Frisell (John Steinbeck), turn to nonmusical figures, and here the inspiration would be a bit hard to detect without knowing ahead of time. This is a bit disappointing in the case of Frisell, an immensely influential figure who arguably has provided the conceptual basis for much of what Brooklyn Rider does. For the composers who have chosen musical muses, however, the references are quite clear. Jazzman Vijay Iyer seems to have been enlivened by the challenge of paying homage to James Brown on a string quartet without having the whole thing come off as a novelty, and Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche reveals an affinity even his fans may not have known about for German electronic artist Jens Massel. Like much of what Brooklyn Rider does, the collection is uneven, but typical again is the directness and engaging quality of the whole.
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