San Francisco Chronicle/CD Reviews: QUARTET SAN FRANCISCO - Jazz

by David Wiegand

After snapping up two Grammy nominations last year for "Latigo," Quartet San Francisco returns with a fascinating album of musical oddities, including seven cuts by the late Raymond Scott. You may not recognize the name, or titles such as "Peter Tambourine" and "The Penguin," but you'll know the music, beautifully reinvented by the Bay Area quartet (violinists Jeremy Cohen and Kayo Miki, violist Emily Onderdonk and cellist Joel Cohen). Many of the Scott tunes were originally written for Warner Bros. cartoons, and they became unforgettable. The eclectic disc also includes Bernstein's "Gee Officer Krupke" from "West Side Story," Earle Hagen's haunting "Harlem Nocturne" and the Yiddish theater crossover classic "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen." At times, the arrangements evoke Stephane Grappelli, but the sound is as impossible to categorize as the quartet itself.

Quartet San Francisco, WHIRLED CHAMBER MUSIC, VIOLINJAZZ RECORDINGS, $18.99

September 30, 2007