| Gabe Terracciano is one of the most celebrated violinists from the jazz world and tonight, Feb. 24, he’s stepping on stage at Berlin with Minneapolis players Greg Byers on cello and Geoff LeCrone on guitar. Terracciano and Byers stopped by the Jazz88 studios to talk about the show and the importance of rhythm for string players. |
This interview originally aired on The Afternoon Cruise on 2/24/25
READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW BELOW:
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
It’s the Afternoon Cruise. I’m chatting with violinist Gabe Terraciano and cellist Greg Byers. Gabe is in town partially because he’s a member of the Turtle Island String Quartet. They played with Terence Blanchard last night at the Ordway. But tonight, Greg and Gabe and Geoff LeCrone are playing at Berlin in the North Loop. They’re doing two sets starting at 7pm Greg, welcome. Excuse me, Greg. Welcome back to jazz 88 Gabe, welcome to jazz 88 for the very first time.
Gabe Terraciano
Thank you so so much. Thank you.
Greg Byers
Always happy to be here.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
Now I’m excited because we just heard some of this music from you Gabe, a tune called Dance for Jimmy, and that tune features some beautiful playing from everyone in the trio, but I wanted to hone in on your involvement. You are so rhythmically engaging on a setup where there’s no drums, which is the same case for tonight, a lot of times the drums, even in something as expressive as jazz, are that reliable time keeper. If the drummer’s gone, it seems like it’s everybody’s job, and it seems like you know how to do that job, keep the rhythmic engagement going. I’m curious how you got your sense of time together, and how you let the song breathe while also keeping the tempo strong without a drummer.
Gabe Terraciano
Well, first of all, incredibly high praise. Thank you very much for saying that. So when I grew up in Portland, Maine, and there was a guy, so my dad is a piano player, and he used to play with a guy named Tony Boffa, who was a sort of local band leader. They did a lot of what we would call it, GB work in the northeast, which is like general business, so weddings, functions, dances, things like that. And Tony had something that he would say all the time, which is “rhythm, it’s only everything.” So, you know, when I was a kid, I heard that a lot, and then as time went on, I I found that it was if, you know, if you didn’t have a sense, a good sense of rhythm, you know, that was sort of the build, that’s building block number one. Another person who sort of put that into me at a young age was Darol Anger, who was an incredible violinist, former founding member of the Turtle Island quartet back in the in the mid 80s, up through the 90s. And I remember taking a lesson with him when I was like 15 or something, and he was in Maine. He was working on making violins. And after we were playing for a while, we stopped, and he sort of looked at me, and he was like “you know, if you don’t have a good sense of time, no one’s gonna take you seriously.” And it hurt in the moment, but he was right, and that certainly inspired me to work a lot on that, and I’ve always wanted to be able to use the violin in a way where it doesn’t quite sound like a violin. So bringing out those percussive notes, that idea that everyone on the stage is a drummer, like there was that James Brown movie that came out a few years ago, get on upward that he’s He’s rehearsing the band, and he’s like, What do you play? And the guy goes, saxophone. He goes, No, what do you play drums? What do you play drums? And I love that concept of that everyone plays drums.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
It’s The Afternoon cruise. I’m chatting with violinist Gabe Terraciano and cellist Greg Byers tonight. They play at Berlin with guitarist Geoff LeCrone. They’re doing two sets at 7pm now, Gabe, you are a member of the Turtle Island String Quartet. I imagine that there’s not a lot of people who hire the Turtle Island String Quartet and regret it. This is a group that’s been around since 1985 has been legendary for the run. Have you ever had a client that comes out of the mixing room and goes “not exactly what I was looking for?” Because you’re still navigating musical wants when you get hired for different things, sure. So you’re legends, but on the other hand, you’re fallible. Have you had people come out and go that actually wasn’t what I was expecting? So
Gabe Terraciano
So, that’s, that’s a good question, actually. So generally, we, well, we just recorded a new album this past December that’s gonna be coming out some. Time in this next year, it’s going to be called Island prayers. And I just think about, you know that the producer in there being like, I don’t know about that. Take things like that, but generally, in terms of collaborations, I’ve been a member of the group since 2018 so my my history with them is not nearly as extensive as people like David Balakrishnan, who founded the group and is still the second violinist, and so I’m sure he could tell you more stories about things that happen like that. But with collaborations that we’ve done, the most notable being with Terence Blanchard, that was fairly that was fairly cool, because I don’t think that in the moment when we recorded the the absence record, that like, Terence knew who we were and kind of what we did. But then we were doing stuff in the studio, and he was like, wait a minute, that’s super cool. Like, I didn’t know, I didn’t know you guys could do that. That’s awesome. And then we were practicing and rehearsing one of our solo pieces just because we had some time. And he came over and was like, What are you playing? What is that? And Dave was like, Oh, that’s a piece I wrote. It’s called the second wave. And he said, let’s put that on the album. So there’s a solo String Quartet piece on absence, which fully came out of just us playing in the studio and Terence latching on to it. That’s beautiful. We’ve been very, very lucky in that sense.
Sean McPherson (Jazz88)
So basically, everybody loves you, except for the oneproducer, he’s the best. But like, you know, you work with producers, and it’s like, what about that intonation? What about that? The show tonight for these gentlemen, Gabe Terracciano and cellist Greg Byers is at Berlin. They’re playing with guitarist Geoff LeCrone, two sets starting at 7pm good luck tonight, gentlemen, we really appreciate you stopping by jazz88.
Greg Byers
Thank you so much for having us.
Gabe Terraciano
Thank you Very much.
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