Concert...

Concert...

Ethel was great. High energy. Great ensemble. Brilliant musicianship. Unclassifiable genre.

Some of it pushed into jazz and beyond, with improv and a style reminiscent of Turtle Island SQ. At other times they were in pure modern music that was almost unlistenable. But not quite.

They shared music from their 'Truck Stop' tour, which is premised on landing in a space and connecting with the local musical scene. This included a piece by a young Navajo composer evoking the great southwest, and two pieces from Hawaii that somehow captured the slack key guitar tradition and the feeling of surf and sun.

They played amplified, which surprised me. Recently I had a chance to hear a more traditional string quartet perform unplugged in the same space and it worked very well. The amplification gave them more options for getting the most out of their instruments and only got in the way once when Neil's cut in and out for a few seconds during one of his solos - on his own composition no less.

Probably the high point was after playing the whole concert from behind music stands they came out for their encore and belted out a 10 minute jam that was just a blast.