In early March, violinist
Eric Gorfain and his string quartet the Section visited New York
City, to accompany pop princess Christina Aguilera while she performed
her hit single "Beautiful" on Saturday Night Live. A few
weeks later, the Section performed at a benefit concert in Los Angeles,
the group's home base. The quartet again accompanied a chart-topping
singer-in this case, pensive pianist Fiona Apple-and also performed
a set that drew on its own repertoire: string arrangements of songs
by the theatrical hard-rock band Kiss and art-rockers Radiohead,
plus an orchestral arrangement of the classic-rock staple "Sunshine
of Your Love."
String musicians have accompanied
rock acts since the days of Buddy Holly, and orchestrations of rock songs
are nothing new, but the Section may be the first stand-alone string quartet
formed specifically for these purposes. Now in growing demand as accompanists
for top pop and rock musicians, the group has also made a cottage industry
out of recording its own string tributes to such rock acts as Pink Floyd,
Pearl Jam, and the Smiths.
Straddling the worlds of formally
trained string players and self-taught rock and rollers, the Section reflects
Gorfain's own two-sided musical upbringing. A native of San Diego, he began
Suzuki method violin lessons at age four, proceeding along the customary
path of summer music camps and school orchestras, including competitions
in Vienna and a tour of China with the Sacramento Youth Symphony. While
studying Mozart and Bach in high school, Gorfain became a fan of hard-rock
bands and taught himself to play the guitar and drums.
After earning a music degree
at UCLA in 1991, Gorfain began working as a session musician, first in
Japan (where he had spent part of his senior year), then back in Los Angeles,
playing on jingles, pop records, TV and film soundtracks, even karaoke
background recordings. He was also part of the string section that accompanied
Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and Jimmy Page on a 1996 concert tour. While
surfing the Net two years later he found an advertisement in a Led Zeppelin
news group for string players to record the band's songs.
Gorfain's background made
him an excellent fit for Vitamin Records, a small Los Angeles-based label
that wanted to release string-music arrangements of music by popular rock
bands. "They were very excited to be working with me, and it turned into
a very good relationship," he reflects.
At first, Gorfain would record
all the string parts himself or hire other musicians here and there, but
over time he organized the Section into a stable unit. Since late 2001,
the quartet has included second violinist Daphne Chen, a USC graduate who
has been active in performing modern classical music with the New Century
Players as well as accompanying such pop acts as the Backstreet Boys; cellist
Richard Dodd, who studied at Long Beach State, spent six years accompanying
the songwriting duo Lowen and Navarro, and is a member of the California
Philharmonic; and violist Leah Katz, an Indiana University grad who has
performed professionally with the Long Beach and West LA symphonies.
Since the first Led
Zeppelin tribute CD release in 1999, Gorfain has created, by his
estimate, almost 200 string-quartet arrangements for various similar
discs. These include complete reworkings of Radiohead's landmark
OK Computer and the Who's rock opera Tommy, plus
music by industrial grinders Nine Inch Nails, U2, Bjork, and others.
Most recently, the Section completed recording its version of Pink
Floyd's 1973 rock opus Dark Side of the Moon, plus tributes
to Kiss, Pearl Jam, the Smiths, and Eric Clapton.
"The main challenge is that
you're removing the drums," Gorfain explains, "so the rhythmic pulse, the
groove, has to be transferred to the string instruments."
Different projects pose
different challenges. For Dark Side of the Moon, Gorfain
"sat down and tried to spread things out so that by the end of the
album, the melodies, the harmonies, the rhythms, solos-everything-moved
around the quartet." Bands with a textured, orchestral sound, like
Radiohead, readily lend themselves to this treatment, Gorfain adds.
Straight-ahead rock acts, like Kiss, are another story. "We tried
to capture that catchiness," he adds, "and the aggressiveness and
the power."
Even as they pay tribute to
rock's biggest acts, the Section has been winning over rock musicians as
fans of the group in its own right. After the Section recorded a tribute
to the hard-rock band Tool, the band's leader, Maynard James Keenan, asked
the quartet to provide string accompaniment for a few songs on his side
project, A Perfect Circle.
"I was able to hear directly
from one of the artists we'd tributed that he likes our work," says Gorfain.
"It was gratifying."
While Gorfain and the Section
enjoy neither the wealth nor the stardom of the artists whose music they
accompany and perform, Gorfain finds satisfaction in bringing these two
worlds together. "As long as you're being creative and you're fulfilling
yourself as a musician," he says, "you're successful."
Photo
at top: (from left) THE SECTION: Daphne Chen, Richard Dodd, Eric Gorfain,
and Leah Kaz break new ground with their string projects.
