eMusic Review
Though he's a violinist in an improvisation scene dominated by horn players, Leroy Jenkins never sounded like an odd man out. He was at home in all sorts of settings: heading an electro-acoustic quintet with George Lewis for Space Minds, New Worlds, Survival of America; fronting tough bass and drums in his Revolutionary Ensemble; blending with Min Xiao-Fen's Chinese pipa in the quartet Driftwood, and with pianist Myra Melford and Art Ensemble saxophonist Joseph Jarman in the trio Equal Interest. He composed for and improvised with chamber orchestra. Yet for all his collaborative music-making, Jenkins is especially strong on this 1992 solo recital. On the one hand, he uses a dictionary's worth of the sort of "extended techniques" new music composers favor; on the other, he plays with the lyrical freedom and rough grace of a backwoods fiddler at a Saturday night dance: an elusive combination no one pulled off better.
