(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., March 9, 1998) -- What the group Wayfaring Strangers lacked in polish it more than made up for in spirit and inventiveness in its performance on Sunday night at the Clark Art Institute, part of the museum's month-long, "From the Old World to the New" world-folk concert series.

Boasting eight virtuoso musicians -- all of whom share a command of several different musical genres and equally impressive genre-bending sensibilities -- the sky was seemingly the limit for the outfit, which applied an improvisational jazz approach to a repertoire of folk and bluegrass tunes.

In the end, the program said as much about the resilience of the raw material itself and the inherent connections between seemingly disparate styles of music as it did about the versatility of the all- star ensemble.

The brainchild of Matt Glaser, a Berklee-based violinist who was a deft and amusing frontman, Wayfaring Strangers brought together top talent from the contemporary folk, bluegrass, jazz, Celtic and Klezmer worlds, and asked them to interweave their styles through and among each other.

While attempts at such fusions are by no means unprecedented, they are rarely approached in as spontaneous or as expansive a fashion as it was here.

Spontaneity was the catch-word of the evening, and although Glaser had to scramble with his triple-duty as emcee, violinist and conductor, he had the relative luxury of fronting a little big-band featuring the world-class talents of Andy Statman on mandolin and clarinet, banjo player Tony Trischka, guitarist John McGann, pianist Bruce Barth, bassist Jim Whitney and singer-songwriters Lucy Kaplansky and Jennifer Kimball.

With all that musical muscle-power it must have been tempting to just sit back and let the musicians blow, but Glaser did his best to corral the Wayfaring Strangers into realizing his vision of a musical idiom blending the emotional peaks and valleys of Bill Monroe's high lonesome sound with the harmonic sophistication and rhythmic pulse of jazz.

Along the way, he also showcased two of the most dynamic voices in contemporary folk-pop. Kaplansky and Kimball have frequently sung together in other situations, and the blend of their versatile instruments is simply the most natural and acrobatic duetting since -- well, since Kimball sang with her erstwhile partner Jonatha Brooke in The Story.

A medley of the traditional song "June Apple" and a contemporary gospel tune, "Shifting Sands of Time," was typical of the constantly shifting musical terrain of the evening. The piece began with a chaotic flurry of sound before Glaser turned it into a country swing tune. In between achingly high and lonesome verses by Kimball and Kaplansky, soloists contributed their instrumental voices, with Barth's piano taking it deep into lyrical jazz territory and Statman's mandolin abstractions taking it into the ether.

Bill Monroe's "Memories of You" was rendered in waltz-time, beginning with a plaintive violin melody and featuring utterly haunting vocals. Another mountain ballad, "High On a Mountain," was equally dark, with Kaplansky's dusky, jazzy delivery suggesting Billie Holiday gone to Appalachia, and the arrangement recalling some of Cassandra Wilson's more recent work.

The folk-gospel tune "Wayfaring Stranger," from which the group takes its name, opened with Statman on clarinet playing a Klezmer-style doina, or improvised melody over a modal drone laid down by the rest. Statman's abstraction of a Hasidic prayer melody broke into a frenzied crescendo before Kaplansky stated the melody.

The singers were each given a few moments in the spotlight to perform some of their original tunes. The group backed Kaplansky on a rendition of her father's clever, swinging ditty, "On an Asteriod with You," while Kimball unleashed her own soaring, plaintive vocals on "Kissing In the Car," off her upcoming debut CD.

As much as one would have liked to have heard more hot licks from Trischka and Statman, and maybe some duet or trio settings apart from the group as a whole, in the end this was about the joy and generous give-and-take of a freewheeling ensemble.

[This review originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on March 10, 1998. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1998. All rights reserved.]