By Jason M. Rubin

Unlike a lot of modern jazz releases, this isn’t so much about displaying virtuosity (though all the musicians are virtuosos) as it is about setting a mood and a groove and dancing on top of it.

As We Are, Dave Stryker with Julian Shore, John Patitucci, Brian Blade, and a string quartet. (Strikezone)

What happens when you add a string quartet to a jazz quartet? Do you get classical music that swings? Jazz music with an added layer of lush harmony? Or do you get an octopus that swims and soars with freedom and verve? Guitarist Dave Stryker’s new album, As We Are, feels very much like an octopus.

To his own quartet — Julian Shore on piano (a Rhode Islander and Berklee College of Music graduate) and the formidable rhythm section of John Patitucci on bass and Brian Blade on drums (who have been with Wayne Shorter for several years) — Stryker has added an unnamed string quartet. Meaning that the individual musicians are named but not the quartet, so it’s not clear if they are a regular unit. The results are fascinating because they are so unpredictable. The strings are not decorative but rather integral to the music, which means the tracks go off into some different, but always interesting, directions.

All the string arrangements are by Shore, including the lead-off “Overture” that features the string quartet on its own. This track is followed by “Lanes,” an uptempo number that provides a solo turn for Blade, followed by some lovely playing by Shore. Here, the strings complement and support the band. But on the next number, “River Man,” composed by the late English singer-songwriter Nick Drake, whose music is decidedly not sunny, the strings are very much equal to the band. From an impressionistic start to the stirring solo by first violinist Sara Caswell, the strings clearly have legs, not just wings. The spirit of Drake’s moody tune remains very much intact.

All the remaining tracks, bar one from Shore, are Stryker originals. As a writer, his music swings gently and melodically; as a guitarist, he is velvety smooth. This is not “out there” music, but there is a lot going on inside these tunes. Each musician in the band serves the others; solos do not overwhelm the group aesthetic, or the listener, for  that matter. Unlike a lot of modern jazz releases, this isn’t so much about displaying virtuosity (though all the musicians are virtuosos) as it is about setting a mood and a groove and dancing on top of it.

A good example is “Hope,” another uptempo tune. It features a Patitucci bass solo, but the strings maintain a low ceiling over the proceedings, like the background in a painting that seems to get covered up by the subject but which, in the finished product, is clearly seen and essential to the overall piece. At the end, you don’t remember the solo so much as the feel of the piece as a whole.

Shore’s composition “One Thing at a Time” opens aggressively, with Patitucci’s acoustic bass thumping into the theme, an angular piece of writing that evolves into a driving piano solo joined in time by waves of strings and then assertive solos by Stryker and Patitucci. The influence of Danilo Perez, Shore’s teacher at Berklee’s Global Jazz Institute, is easily heard and this is definitely one of the highlights of the album.

The title track is another feature for the string quartet. In fact, it opens as a classical chamber piece for the first minute before the band enters and it subtly morphs into a jazz ballad with yet another tasty bass solo. The band stays fairly muted, so the string quartet is really the lead instrument.

The album concludes with “Soul Friend,” offering Caswell another solo feature. What makes that extra compelling is that for the first time on the recording, Stryker lets his blues flag fly. “The blues is always a part of my playing,” he says in the liner notes, and Caswell gets to show that she can play those blue notes as well. She takes the first solo and then it’s Stryker’s train the rest of the way, except for one section where the strings play pizzicato in a way that suggests a group conversation among torch singers.

What sets As We Are apart is the equal standing given the string quartet. This isn’t just some gimmicky “Artist with Strings” recording. It’s an octet outing in which Stryker himself is the only one playing an electric instrument, and the string arrangements are carefully considered and expertly applied. Altogether, it’s not a burner but it’s also not a mellow album to be played in the background. It’s a uniquely successful synthesis that is easy to like and easy to recommend. (Arts Fuse review of Dave Stryker’s 2021 album Baker’s Dozen.)

As with many releases these days, the album is currently available on BandCamp and all major streaming services. More information can be found on Stryker’s website.

Jason M. Rubin has been a professional writer for more than 35 years, the last 20 as senior creative associate at Libretto Inc., a Boston-based strategic communications agency where he has won awards for his copywriting. He has written for Arts Fuse since 2012. Jason’s first novel, The Grave & The Gay, based on a 17th-century English folk ballad, was published in September 2012. His current book, Ancient Tales Newly Told, released in March 2019, includes an updated version of his first novel along with a new work of historical fiction, King of Kings, about King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Jason is a member of the New England Indie Authors Collective and holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.