By Kalena Reynolds | Staff Writer
For classically trained musicians in the Baylor Jazz String Quartet, “embracing the weird” has become second nature. Although the four members grew up learning to perfect their craft, jazz has become for them what rock ‘n’ roll was for Elton John during his youth.
McKinney senior Katie Cox, a violinist, revived the group two years ago after a 20-year hiatus. Now, with the help of the three other members, the group has played many notable shows, such as Diadeloso and Invitation to Excellence.
While jazz is typically played on a mix of brass instruments with piano, bass, drums and guitar, the group has found a way to take songs within the genre like Frank Sinatra’s “The Way You Look Tonight” and arrange them for string instruments.
Waco junior Gina Gravange, a violist, said jazz is not a natural habitat for stringed instruments. She said combining the two takes creativity and rearrangements of standards.
“It’s really hard to put this many string players into a jazz ensemble that you typically think of [being in a] big band, because we would need to all be amplified,” Gravange said. “Those standards don’t typically have string parts written for them, so you would need to make a lot of adaptations. But in the string quartet setting, we are able to play jazz string quartet music that’s originally written for us or arranged for us by people like our coach.”
The differences extend beyond the arrangements. It also requires special techniques from each musician to imitate the sounds of jazz on stringed instruments.
Arlington senior Maslin Markle, a cellist, said that to get her instrument to imitate the deep sounds of jazz bass, she has adopted various ways of playing that would appear obscure to the untrained eye.
“Having to try to find a bass sound in a cello is a bit tricky,” Markle said. “Like orchestral plucking, for example — we use the tips of our fingers, and it’s kind of dainty. But with this, it’s just kind of like ripping your instrument to shreds honestly — whatever it takes to get that fat bass sound.”
While these alternative methods produce satisfying melodies, they are often taxing on the musicians and their instruments. Markle said she often gets painful blisters while playing with the quartet, which pop and force her to alter her playing method.
“She’s not joking about potentially ripping your instrument to shreds,” Gravange said. “We will find the limits of our instruments, and with fragile wooden instruments, that’s kind of dangerous.”
Alex Parker, assistant director for jazz studies at Baylor and the coach of the group, said the dividing fork between jazz and classical music is the emphasis on perfection. Parker helped create the original group over 24 years ago and arranges most of the music now.
“The biggest difference is classical music is like writing a paper,” Parker said. “You want everything to be perfect, and you want all the grammar to be there. And jazz is more like talking to your friends. It’s much more slurred. It’s conversational music, as opposed to the [perfection] that you want out of playing a concerto or a symphony orchestra or symphony piece.”
The group recently did a master class with other jazz string musicians to receive feedback and explore their knowledge of technique within the genre. During the masterclass, the group was told to “embrace the weird.”
“They said we fall into the category of in-betweens, but because we are that weird, we get to embrace the weird, play off the weird, be that weird and grow from it,” Gravange said.
Keller sophomore Julia Tardy, a violinist, said that while most might be unfamiliar with these differences, some composers and musicians gravitate toward them for that exact reason.
“Being different provides opportunities for others, like composers who want to do something different,” Tardy said. “We have somebody writing a piece for us — Mitch Gilly — he’s actually the arranger for Sing. And so he’s written a sort of Japanese jazz fusion piece for us that we’re going to be premiering at the end of the year.”
After college, the group hopes to continue making its way in music and eventually navigate its way back to jazz.
“Fingers crossed, we get big and famous and we don’t have to split up,” Tardy said. “But yes, I think even if we’re not together, we can go to different cities, and there’s always going to be jazz jams and gigging opportunities where we can play with other jazz players. And so I think we’ll all try to keep that up, even after we graduate.”
