Fiddling With the String Quartet

The string quartet is one of the paragon ensembles of classical chamber music--a cameo version of the full orchestra that drew the attention of composers ranging from Mozart to Bartok.

Then there’s Fiddlers 4--also a quartet of stringed instruments, also an elite ensemble of paragon players. But don’t expect to hear Beethoven, et al, at the group’s concert Saturday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. Which is not to say that they couldn’t do it with violinists Darol Anger, Michael Doucet and Bruce Molsky and cellist Rashad Eggleston on the roster.

“Nobody knew how this was going to turn out when we first got together,” says Doucet, best known for his work as the leader of the Cajun supergroup, Beausoleil. “Somebody said, “Oh, four fiddle. players, they’ll just play 10,000 notes! But our approach has been just the opposite--to get the feeling down and let the notes follow. I know that I played differently than I ever had.”

The product of that first encounter was a debut album, “Fiddlers 4” (Compass Records)--an eclectic assemblage of Americana ranging from Duke Ellington’s “East St. Louis Toodle-oo”, to Doucet’s Cajun fiddle tune, “Atchafalaya Pipeline.” The group’s first tour begins with the Barclay appearance Saturday, followed by a Da Camera Society concert at Union Station on Sunday, and winds up in Somerville, Mass.

“We made the record in November,” Doucet recalls, “and it was so much fun, just learning the songs--all of which came out different from the way they started. You knew what the song was, you knew what the melody was, but you didn’t know what everybody else was going to do, which is what was neat--it kind of created a synthesis of sounds that you can’t get by just playing music that’s completely written.”

That’s not surprising, given the players’ diverse backgrounds. Doucet is a Cajun music legend. Anger, a prominent member of the Dave Grisman Quintet (among numerous other groups), is also a founding member of the Turtle Island Quartet and a trailblazer in blending jazz and bluegrass.

Molsky has been dubbed “The Rembrandt of Appalachian Fiddling”; name a regional style and he can not only play it, he can describe its historical sources.

Eggleston, the newcomer in the group, was the first string player admitted to the Berklee School of Music on a full scholarship.

“Rashad’s just a kid,” says Doucet recalling a time when he invited him along for a jog. “And he said, “Let me go with you. I ran the Boston Marathon once.” And I said, “What? How did you prepare?” And he said, “I didn’t; I just thought about doing it a half hour before the race. But I was really sore afterward.” That’s the kind of guy he is--filled with totally spontaneous energy.”

That energy extends throughout the quartet and throughout the songs on their album, most of which will be performed in their two Southland programs. The version of Ellington’s “East St. Louis Toodle-oo,” for example, captures both the period jazz rhythms and the “jungle” qualities present in the Duke’s music of the early ‘30s.

Doucet’s vocals on pieces such as “You Little Wild Thing (La Be-taille)” and “Danse Caribe” add character and atmosphere. And offbeat selections add spice to their repertoire, such as the melody “Hidirassirifo,” and “African Solstice,” in which the fiddles simulate the sound of an African balaphon, or xylophone.

“The idea” says Doucet, “was to do the kind of Americana quartet that had never really been done before, in which we could each play our own songs, our own sounds, while at the same time accompanying and supporting the various styles of the others. In doing so, we were hoping to create a whole new style.”

The question of what that style would be is a bit uncertain. Not that it really matters, whether the quartet is playing laid-back Cajun style or the hard-swinging, improvisatory blend that Anger calls “jazzgrass.”

“The bottom line with us,” says Doucet, “is that--as different as we are--we all play dance music, in one way or another. And that’s a pulse that has its own mind.

“It’s infectious. Once you start it, it’s just there, and it’s hard to stop it. And that’s what Fiddlers 4 is all about.”

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Fiddlers 4 performs tonight at Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine, at 8. Tickets: $29 and$25. (949) 854-4646. Fiddlers 4 also performs Sunday at Union Station, 800 N. Alameda St. Los Angeles, in a Da Camera Society Chamber Music in Historic Sites performance, 3 p.m. $24. (310) 954-4300.