Sarah Bernstein: VEER Quartet
New Focus Recordings

Violinist Sarah Bernstein has a number of provocative group projects on the go, among them an electro-acoustic noise duo with drummer Kid Millions, the improv/spoken word trio Iron Dog, and a poetic minimalist duo with drummer Satoshi Takeishi. If that makes the idea of a string quartet seem staid by comparison, appearances are, as always, deceiving: her VEER Quartet is no less adventurous a project and poses a direct challenge to the way string quartets generally operate. The group's self-titled debut captures an outfit as comfortable improvising as following strict notation and with members whose appetite for play matches Bernstein's own.

Such thinking comes naturally to someone whose very nature inclines towards the unusual. She grew up in the Bay Area where her violin training followed the conventional path of classical instruction and school ensembles; she also found herself, however, drawn to improv and poetry scenes, tendencies that suggest a move to New York was inevitable. In the years since arriving there in 1996, she's worked with a long list of fellow explorers, Kris Davis, Anthony Braxton, Tomeka Reid, Jason Kao Hwang, and others.

How VEER Quartet came into being is interesting in itself. When years ago Bernstein presented an evening of her chamber music at Brooklyn's Firehouse Space, she assembled nine musicians into different configurations to suit the piece in question. Of all of them, the string quartet setup struck her as particularly compelling, so much so it prompted her in 2018 to formalize the group as an ongoing concern. Bernstein was circumspect in her choice of personnel as violinist Sana Nagano, violist Leonor Falcon, and cellist Nick Jozwiak are comfortable with written charts but soloing too, something three of the six pieces on the release call upon. The name? Purposefully chosen to accentuate the quartet's ability to change direction on the fly, sometimes within the same piece.

All six settings on the compact forty-three-minute recording credit Bernstein as composer, but with improv central to the performances all four make significant contributions. The tone and character of the release are set quickly by “Frames No. 1,” which lunges quickly from country-tinged call-and-response to the kind of chamber-styled swing one associates with jazz. A patchwork of brief episodes follows, the shape-shifting design showing the quartet adapting to swiftly changing circumstances. High-energy solos likewise capture each member's capacity for personal expression that pushes beyond the score.

“News Cycle Progression” opens with a commanding through-composed section that shows Bernstein comfortable writing within the string quartet idiom when desired. Consistent with its title, “World Warrior” presents the quartet's playing at its wildest. Whereas three pieces are in the concise four-minute range, two push past ten minutes, the longest, “Clay Myth,” a wide-ranging travelogue checking in at almost thirteen. An opening notated part provides a solid grounding for solos, all four again taking turns. With pizzicato backing as support, Jozwiak's up first with a moving statement, after which Nagano, Falcon, and Bernstein go deep for expressive turns of their own. Elsewhere, “Nightmorning” advances like a disturbed dream, the setting less restrictedly structured than the others and the one most amenable to individual exploration.

September 2022