"Whatever the reason, the violin’s isolation is undeserved. Here, without fanfare or special treatment, it fits right into a high-grade pianoless quartet-displacing easily as much weight as tenor saxophone, bass or drums, and proclaiming John Ettinger as a distinctive and top-drawer new voice in the music.An auspicious release from an emergent star, and a new benchmark for creative jazz violin."
– All About Jazz. See complete review on press page.

With two fine CDs to his credit thus far on Ettinger Music, the San Francisco Bay Area-based composer-bandleader John Ettinger has quickly made his mark as a jazz violinist who is a torchbearer for the instrument’s potential in improvised music. His first album, 2003’s August Rain, was lauded by All About Jazz as "brilliant," with the leader, on violin and effects, singled out as "the secret" to the album’s success: "[He] has a way of popping in and out at opportune times to build a melody out of a groove, establish a specific mood, or carry on a burst of lyricism." Likewise in a critique of his second CD, 2006’s Kissinger in Space, the same jazz pub heralded Ettinger as "a distinctive and top-drawer new voice in the music" and the album "a new benchmark for creative jazz violin."

Indeed, Ettinger promises to be a key player to further explore the violin’s sonic depth in jazz. While the instrument has enjoyed a resurgence of interest in recent years with the growing popularity of such artists as Regina Carter and Billy Bang, its potential in improvised music has yet to be fully fathomed.

A resident of the Bay Area since 1992, Ettinger has played an instrumental role in the fertile music environment there. He has performed and recorded with an array of noteworthy artists over the years, including two cuts as a "string section" with Honeycut (a new project on DJ Shadow’s Quannum Records); composer/clarinetist Beth Custer (on her CD Vinculum Symphony and DVD My Grandmother); vocalist Percy Howard (Incidental Seductions with Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, King Crimson’s Trey Gunn and This Heat’s Charles Hayward); the late alto saxophonist Calder Spanier (The Calder Project); Chicago-based saxophonist Scott Rosenberg (IE); singer Mark Growden (Inside Beneath Behind); and singer-songwriter Pete Forbes (The Gulf Between).

Ettinger served as a co-founding member of several bands, including eclectic improv groups Overdrive Cultists (with Grassy Knoll members Dave Revelli and Jonathan Byerly); LBJ (with Lukas Ligeti and Brian Kane); San Francisco Electric String Trio (with Doug Carroll and Jim Hearon). and electric jazz-jam band Hurlo Thrumbo. He played and recorded with psychedelic punk band Clockbrains, and has also performed in various settings with The Scott Amendola Band, Damon Smith, Matt Ingalls, Andrew Borger, and Naut Humon and the Iso-Orchestra with Arto Lindsay and Eyvind Kang. Prior to moving to the Bay Area, Ettinger lived in Arizona, where he collaborated with several musicians, including Trio Discussions (with Rob Kaplan, and J. B. Smith), an improv group with a recording produced by guitarist David Torn; vocalist Dennis Rowland, and tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby.

On Ettinger’s latest project, Kissinger in Space, he showcases his prowess as a composer and improviser whose music is a compelling blend of the lyrical and the free. The album displays his talent as a fine bandleader whose quartet comprises Malaby (signaling a creative reunion from their days at Arizona State University in the ’80s when they met in a 19th-century music theory class), bassist Devin Hoff and drummer Amendola. The CD is a fitting follow-up to August Rain, even though the loops inherent in the latter are scaled back. While Ettinger hastens to note that the violin loops do play a role in Kissinger in Space (prominently in the eerie, spacey title track), he says, "I’ve been doing that kind of improvising for years. I love doing it, that extra level of interaction (the loops are done real-time) but this album is probably the least amount I’ve done. I wanted to hear more violin on this CD."

Regarding Malaby’s inclusion on Kissinger in Space, Ettinger recalls their initial hookup in Arizona: "We became friends, had a few classes together, played on each other’s senior recitals and then went different ways and to different coasts." Despite the miles, the two kept in touch. In December 2005, when Malaby was in the Bay Area playing with bassist Charlie Haden, Ettinger enlisted the tenor saxist to guest on the current project that was originally conceived as a trio date. It soon became apparent with the chemistry so potent that, in Ettinger’s words, "the initial trio record happily turned into a quartet recording."

Holding the rhythm section down are two Bay Area regulars: Hoff (who plays in the Nels Cline Singers trio as well as fronts his own duo project Good for Cows with drummer Ches Smith) and Amendola (the Bay Area vet who in addition to fronting his own bands is also in Nels Cline Singers, currently tours with Madeleine Peyroux, has an impressive resume with Charlie Hunter and the T.J. Kirk project, and played drums on Ettinger’s first CD).

Ettinger’s intent in recording Kissinger in Space was to engage in a musical roundtable discussion. "It was: Define the subject matter, put up a couple of signposts, then generally let the players have at it within the context of the subjects," he says. "I tend to write stuff for one or two melodies and rhythm section, without regard to style or genre, with a floating relationship of improvisation and composition. The improvised sections are basically free, and often overlap the written parts. I wanted the free improv thing, but I wanted to focus it and have it be ABOUT something rather than just a display of extended techniques or reharmonizations or velocity. So the idea was to write the minimum amount of notes for maximum effect that would define the mood or idea. So that even though it was open improv time, it would be in the specific zone of the composition. So you have to have musicians that can play, and LIKE to play lots of styles to deal with the jazz and not-so-jazz implications that crop up in many of the tunes." He adds that "an attempt was made at somewhat singable melodies throughout in the written stuff for all the instruments."

Ettinger notes that he tries to steer clear of around-the-horn head-solo-head arrangements. "There’s only one tune, ’Quaint,’ where there’s one soloist over the rhythm section, followed by another soloist over the rhythm section," he says. "The rest is a mix of group solos, lots of me and Tony improvising at the same time."

In Ettinger’s words, the following are thumbnail-sketch overviews of the nine tracks on Kissinger in Space—

– 1. "Dual Diagnosis" These are simple uptempo countermelodies leading to a free section. The A section has a strong, short, simple unison line, never to be heard again in the tune. The sax and violin continue a counterline relationship throughout the solo section, heating up in the middle. Scott’s playing is infectious throughout. I confess a guilty pleasure in starting this CD with a tune that has no intro-just spot on the A-section melody-as a contrast to August Rain which starts with a tune that has a two-minute textural intro.

– 2. "Better Angels" The violin and bass improvise up to the A section, about 1:40 in. The improv is in front of the tune, which can almost function as a pop tune that gets a quiet rubato treatment here. I want to play all the material on Kissinger in Space live, but particularly this one because of it’s "songiness." Could go lots of places. It was written for my kids early one morning when they were still sleeping.

– 3. "Kissinger in Space" This one has some of the most out playing of the disc sandwiched between fairly straight-forward, strong, rockin’ unison melodies. I love that contrast. After the group’s pointillist playing that interacts with the loops, Tony improvises a beautiful melody that leads to the economical, but huge slow groove Devin and Scott grow into at the new tempo. We let the loops weave over that for a while, then come in with the coda melody. People ask me about the title. I don’t have a good answer.

– 4. "Quaint" This is your basic even eighth uptempo, one-chord A-section followed by a contrasting out of time and quiet B section kind of tune, with a lyrical, ferocious solo by Tony. The Devin-Tony-Scott hookup is on great display here. Tony and I soloed one at a time on this tune-the only time on the disc. The title refers to our current attorney general calling the Geneva Conventions "quaint."

– 5. "The Observer" Another simple melody leading to some unique bowed harmonics/sul ponticello interaction between bass and violin. Devin and I discovered a mutual love for that sound in the middle of this take. Pastoral respite. Tony: minimal, essential. Scott sat this take out.

– 6. "Harper Lee" I titled this song after Harper Lee, the novelist who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book To Kill a Mockingbird. She recently said something like this: "Everyone has cell phones, iPods and minds like empty rooms." I loved her book-and the fact that she only wrote one book. Jeb and Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird reminded me of my cousins Dave and Kim when I first saw the film version when I was about 10 years old. This tune could have also been titled ’Erik Satie’ for entirely different reasons. Scott played the written mbira part in the beginning as written, then slowly and beautifully processed/treated/looped it. That really adds to the mood throughout. Highlights of the track: The beautiful bowed bass solo by Devin over Scott’s electric mbira loop in the beginning and my favorite Tony and Tony/John moments of the disc after Scott’s entrance on cymbals about three-to-four minutes in.

– 7. "Talking Leaves" Scott covers his drums with all kinds of metal objects, then starts the tune. Devin is a brilliantly flexible and quick-thinking improviser, and yet it seems he can play a simple bass line for hours and love it, and just get deeper with each repetition. This happens throughout the disc—I like to write bass lines. Here it’s a repeating five-bar bass line with a 65-bar unison melody over the top. Tony/John improvise in the middle. The title is a nod to my great great great grandmother who was Cherokee. "Talking Leaves" is the English name for the first written record of the Cherokee language.

– 8. "The Doors Are Closing" This one features Scott’s electronics improvisations over a quiet, lyrical trio. It was supposed to be a departure-point kind of tune, a vehicle leading to a group improv. But in this case Tony suggested that we keep repeating the written lines so we did, and that had the effect of bringing out the chant-like voice leading in the violin-sax-arco bass trio, which provided focus on the other-world contrast between the trio and Scott’s sensitive use of his electronics. Scott was the only improviser in this piece. Beautiful playing by Tony on tenor, in that altissimo range.

– 9. "Tangle" Scott and Devin kill on a written 7/8 groove while Tony and I spend a moment on the written counterlines (never to return, although they’re freely referred to by each of us), then we go off. I especially like the rhythmic rub between violin/sax and bass/drums throughout.