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Jean-Luc Ponty

Jean-Luc Ponty is a pioneer and undispute master of violin in the arena of jazz and rock. He is widely regarded as an innovator who has applied his unique visionary spin that has expanded the vocabulary of modern music. Ponty was born in a family of classical musicians on September 29, 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano. At sixteen, he was admitted to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, graduating two years later with the institution's highest award, Premier Prix. In turn, he was immediately hired by one of the major symphony orchestras, Concerts Lamoureux, where he played for three years. While still a member of the orchestra in Paris, Ponty picked up a side gig playing clarinet (which his father had taught him) for a college jazz band that regularly performed at local parties. It proved a life-changing jumping-off point. A growing interest in the jazz sounds of Miles Davis and John Coltrane compelled him to take up the tenor saxophone. Fueled by an all-encompassing creative passion, Jean-Luc soon felt the need to express his jazz voice through his main instrument, the violin. So it was that Ponty found himself leading a dual musical life: rehearsing and performing with the orchestra while also playing jazz until 3 AM at clubs throughout Paris. The demands of this doomed schedule eventually brought him to a crossroads. "Naturally, I had to make a choice, so I took a chance with jazz", says Jean-Luc. At first, the violin proved to be a handicap; few at the time viewed the instrument as having a legitimate place in the modern jazz vocabulary. With a powerful sound that eschewed vibrato, Jean-Luc distinguished himself with be-bop era phrasings and a punchy style influenced more by horn players than by anything previously tried on the violin; nobody had heard anything quite like it before. Critics said then that he was the first jazz violinist to be as exciting as a saxophonist. Ponty's notoriety grew with remarkable leaps and by 1964, at age 22, he released his debut solo album for Philips, Jazz Long Playing. A 1966 live album called Violin Summit united Ponty on stage in Basel, Switzerland with such notable string talents as Svend Asmussen, Stéphane Grappelli and Stuff Smith. In 1967, John Lewis of The Modern Jazz Quartet invited Ponty to perform at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Jean-Luc's first-ever American appearance garnered thunderous applause and led to a U.S.

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Radio & Podcasts

Featuring violin players Carlo Cantini, Steve Kindler and Jean-Luc Ponty

Read "Featuring violin players Carlo Cantini, Steve Kindler and Jean-Luc Ponty" reviewed by Len Davis


Music based on the You Tube show 4 Fusion Friday for November 2024, featuring violinist's Carlo Cantini, L Subramanium Jean-Luc Ponty, Michal Urbaniak and Steve Kindler. Playlist Carlo Cantini “Equilateral Room" from Heptagon (Sympaty) 00:00 Electric Arc “Jam Machine" from March Of Time (TRJ Jazz) Time Marker Jean-Luc Ponty “Imaginery Voyage PT 4" from Imaginary Voyage (Atlantic) Time Marker L Subramaniam “Seventh Heaven" from Spanish Wave (Viji) Time Marker Michal Urbaniak “Strech" from Fusion 3 (Columbia) Time Marker ...

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Liner Notes

Jean-Luc Ponty: No Absolute Time

Read "Jean-Luc Ponty: No Absolute Time" reviewed by Peter Rubie


When we talk about world music, we often use the phrase in quiet desperation to describe music that defies familiarity and our expectations but still appeals to us. Its very newness is often both slightly disturbing and refreshing at the same time. Two years before No Absolute Time was released in 1993, Jean-Luc Ponty (JLP) produced one called Tchokola. In an interview for this re-release, JLP said, “Tchokola was a very special project for me. I recorded it ...

4
Liner Notes

Jean-Luc Ponty: Individual Choice

Read "Jean-Luc Ponty: Individual Choice" reviewed by Peter Rubie


By 1982, jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty had established an enviable reputation as a pioneer in jazz-rock and jazz fusion. He began as a young bebop player in the late 1950s with little interest in becoming another swing or gypsy style violinist. It was the “sheets of sound" music of John Coltrane that spoke loudest to him. By the early 1970s Ponty was recording and touring with rock composer Frank Zappa, and playing with John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, as well as ...

4
Liner Notes

Jean-Luc Ponty: Open Mind

Read "Jean-Luc Ponty: Open Mind" reviewed by Peter Rubie


If Individual Choice was the sketchbook of Jean-Luc Ponty's (JLP) decision to take his music in a new direction, Open Mind (1984), released the following year, was a deeper exploration of the emerging world of synthesizers and sequencers and their impact on live (studio) performance. Here, complex rhythmic patterns shift in the background while new sounds appear and disappear on the surface in colorful bursts, and outstanding jazz improvisors create familiar music in new settings. It's almost an audio version ...

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Album Review

Al Di Meola / Jean-Luc Ponty / Stanley Clarke: Rite Of Strings Live at Montreux 1994

Read "Rite Of Strings Live at Montreux 1994" reviewed by Doug Collette


By the time Al Di Meola, Jean-Luc Ponty and Stanley Clarke were recorded in 1994 at the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival—remarkably, in their first time ever playing together in public—each had established a solid reputation in the jazz-fusion field and beyond. Accordingly, it might be seen as destiny that the three would work together in some context and indeed they did on both stage and studio (an album from which came out the year following their appearance in Switzerland).

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Interview

Jean-Luc Ponty: Imaginary Voyages, Part 2

Read "Jean-Luc Ponty: Imaginary Voyages, Part 2" reviewed by Peter Rubie


Part 1 | Part 2American violinist Stuff Smith once said about the young, classically trained and self taught jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, “He plays violin like Coltrane plays saxophone." Born in 1942, Ponty has almost single-handedly taken jazz violin from the swing era into modern jazz, and beyond. At rock musician Frank Zappa's urging, Ponty moved to the States in 1973 to record and tour with Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. In the following years he made ...

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Interview

Jean-Luc Ponty: Imaginary Voyages, Part 1

Read "Jean-Luc Ponty: Imaginary Voyages, Part 1" reviewed by Peter Rubie


Part 1 | Part 2 Jazz is an art form that has been a singular hothouse of musical talent over the decades. There are, and have been, lots of not just great but brilliant players. But perhaps not unsurprisingly, there have been far fewer jazz originals. I mean by that, musicians whose playing has not only outshone most of their contemporaries, but continues to impact generations of players. We might well argue about who has been left out ...

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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty's birthday today!

Jean-Luc Ponty is a pioneer and undispute master of violin in the arena of jazz and rock. He is widely regarded as an innovator who has applied his unique visionary spin that has expanded the vocabulary of modern music. Ponty was born in a family of classical musicians on September 29, 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano. At sixteen, he was admitted to the Conservatoire ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty's birthday today!

Jean-Luc Ponty is a pioneer and undispute master of violin in the arena of jazz and rock. He is widely regarded as an innovator who has applied his unique visionary spin that has expanded the vocabulary of modern music. Ponty was born in a family of classical musicians on September 29, 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano. At sixteen, he was admitted to the Conservatoire ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty's birthday today!

Jean-Luc Ponty is a pioneer and undispute master of violin in the arena of jazz and rock. He is widely regarded as an innovator who has applied his unique visionary spin that has expanded the vocabulary of modern music. Ponty was born in a family of classical musicians on September 29, 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano. At sixteen, he was admitted to the Conservatoire ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty's birthday today!

Jean-Luc Ponty is a pioneer and undispute master of violin in the arena of jazz and rock. He is widely regarded as an innovator who has applied his unique visionary spin that has expanded the vocabulary of modern music. Ponty was born in a family of classical musicians on September 29, 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano. At sixteen... Read more.

Place our Musician of ...

1

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty's birthday today!

Jean-Luc Ponty is a pioneer and undispute master of violin in the arena of jazz and rock. He is widely regarded as an innovator who has applied his unique visionary spin that has expanded the vocabulary of modern music. Ponty was born in a family of classical musicians on September 29, 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano. At sixteen... Read more.

Place our Musician of ...

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Performance / Tour

Jean Luc Ponty To Tour The US Summer 2018

Jean Luc Ponty To Tour The US Summer 2018

Source: Glass Onyon PR - William James

Legendary French violinist Jean Luc Ponty and his band will be continuing their “Atlantic Years” tour in the US beginning August 2018! Jean Luc Ponty is a pioneer and undisputed master of the violin in the arena of jazz and rock. He is widely regarded as an innovator who has applied his unique visionary spin that has expanded the vocabulary of modern music. Says Jean Luc, “We're calling it 'The Atlantic Years' tour since I am touring with my band ...

1

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty's birthday today!

Jean-Luc Ponty is a pioneer and undispute master of violin in the arena of jazz and rock. He is widely regarded as an innovator who has applied his unique visionary spin that has expanded the vocabulary of modern music. Ponty was born in a family of classical musicians on September 29, 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano. At sixteen... Read more.

Place our Musician of ...

6

Performance / Tour

Legendary French Violinist Jean Luc Ponty To Tour The United States Summer 2017

Legendary French Violinist Jean Luc Ponty To Tour The United States Summer 2017

Source: Glass Onyon PR - William James

Legendary French violinist Jean Luc Ponty and his band will be bringing their “Atlantic Years” tour to the US beginning late May 2017! Jean Luc Ponty is a pioneer and undisputed master of the violin in the arena of jazz and rock. He is widely regarded as an innovator who has applied his unique visionary spin that has expanded the vocabulary of modern music. Says Jean Luc, “We're calling it 'The Atlantic Years' tour since I am touring with my ...

1

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty's birthday today!

Jean-Luc Ponty is a pioneer and undispute master of violin in the arena of jazz and rock. He is widely regarded as an innovator who has applied his unique visionary spin that has expanded the vocabulary of modern music. Ponty was born in a family of classical musicians on September 29, 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano. At sixteen... Read more.

Place our Musician of ...

1

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jean-Luc Ponty

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty's birthday today!

Jean-Luc Ponty is a pioneer and undispute master of violin in the arena of jazz and rock. He is widely regarded as an innovator who has applied his unique visionary spin that has expanded the vocabulary of modern music. Ponty was born in a family of classical musicians on September 29, 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano. At sixteen... Read more.

Place our Musician of ...

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