For more than two decades, he has doggedly led the hard-to-classify combo Curlew. What's a curlew, you might ask?

It's a shore bird akin to a sandpiper that has a bubbling call and is fond of remote locales. You can find them in rural Mississippi, where Cartwright grew up Despite more than a half-dozen great CDs, Curlew remains a rumor in its own time. Don't blame the critics for that. If hosannas were hundred-dollar bills, Cartwright would be rich. The New York Times declared Curlew "the best of the unsigned genre-busting downtown groups." Option magazine called it "the best and most obstinately committed band" to emerge from New York's downtown scene.