Jean-Luc Ponty

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Jean Luc Ponty, January 2003

Jean-Luc Ponty (* 29. September 1942 in Avranches ) is a French fusion jazz - violinist and - Composer .

Career

As a child of music teachers, Ponty had violin lessons from the age of six and was then trained as a classical violinist at the Paris Conservatory ; his interest in jazz was aroused by the music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane , among others . In 1960 and 1961 he first worked as a musician in the symphony orchestra Concerts Lamoureux , but at the same time began to play at night in the jazz clubs of Paris. Until 1964 he was a member of Jef Gilson's orchestra . Then he founded his own group. The quartet with Wolfgang Dauner , Daniel Humair and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen was internationally successful; he began to use an electric violin , which he tuned an octave lower than the classical violin.

He has worked with Michel Portal , Stéphane Grappelli , Frank Zappa , Buell Neidlinger , Joachim Kühn , Daryl Stuermer and the Mahavishnu Orchestra and contributed to more than 70 albums. In 1973 he consistently turned to fusion jazz.

Since 1977 he has sometimes used a five-string violin with an additional low C string, as well as a six-string so-called Violectra with additional low C and F strings. Ponty was one of the first musicians to combine the violin with wah-wah pedals, distortion devices and other effects devices , creating his typical, sometimes synthesizer- like timbre .

He has also played the acoustic violin since the mid-1990s, in the Rite of Strings trio with guitarist Al Di Meola and bassist Stanley Clarke . In 2005 Ponty founded the acoustic fusion jazz supergroup Trio! with Stanley Clarke and the banjo player Béla Fleck .

His daughter Clara Ponty is a singer and pianist.

Prizes and awards

In 1967 he received the Prix ​​Django Reinhardt and in 2007 the German Jazz Trophy in Stuttgart .

Discography (selection)

With Frank Zappa

With Mahavishnu Orchestra

  • Apocalypse (1974)
  • Visions Of The Emerald Beyond (1975)

Movie

  • 1999 - L. Subramaniam: Violin From the Heart . Directed by Jean Henri Meunier

Lexigraphic entries

Web links

Commons : Jean-Luc Ponty  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website of the German Jazz Trophy , May 6, 2008
personal data
SURNAME Ponty, Jean-Luc
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French fusion jazz violinist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Avranches , France