Jean Luc Ponty
The Very Best Of Jean Luc Ponty (2000, Rhyno-Atlantic Records)

THE REVIEW

It was May 1970 when the long-playing King Kong by violinist Jean Luc Ponty was released, entirely written by a musical genius like Frank Zappa (with only one song written by Ponty, but it is also the only one where Zappa is present with his guitar): it was neither a Rock nor Jazz album and the term Fusion had not yet entered the musical vocabulary.

After that album and John Coltrane's "My Favourite Things" (although Herbie Hancock and the ingenious "In A Silent Way" by Mile Davis also deserve a mention), the meeting between Jazz and Rock was viewed favorably, and experiments in this sense multiplied (Jazz-Rock or Fusion would explode shortly thereafter and would have many classy exponents, among them my favorites are Scofield, Metheny, and Di Meola).
Perhaps I should have reviewed this album, for its essential compositions present (among all, the title track "King Kong", "Idiot Bastard Son" and, especially, "Music for electric violin and Low Budget Orchestra" with the great George Duke on electric piano). The choice fell on 'The Very Best Of' (2000) which I would recommend to all lovers of music without borders and constraints, because among the artists mentioned, Jean Luc Ponty is probably the least known, and since there is no review present in the archive (not coincidentally), a first introduction through this CD can be useful as a first approach.

Surely Ponty is one of the most underestimated artists among those who have innovated Jazz because he plays the violin, although before him there was the master (also French) Stephane Grappelli: but playing the piano, guitar, or sax, without beating around the bush, in this genre pays off more (ask drummer Weickl or bassist Patitucci how much they had to sweat to get some well-deserved visibility). But who is this madman who lends his violin talent to jazz and rock, collaborating in the same year (1972) with people like Elton John and the future "son of the stars" Alan Sorrenti (in "Aria": masterpiece of Italian prog), and then measuring himself with Fusion pillars like John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, and Al Di Meola?

He is French, born in 1942 to a family of classical musicians: a violinist father and a pianist mother. He learned both instruments at the age of 5, and already at 11 he had to make a first choice, leaning towards violin to the detriment of piano. Only 6 years later (at 17) the prodigious teenager, fresh from graduating from the Paris Conservatory, is faced with another difficult and this time sudden choice: classical music or jazz. Struck by Coltrane and Davis, Ponty chooses jazz and sets aside the violin to return to the piano and even try the sax. The meeting with Grappelli at the "Blue Note de Paris" will be decisive, as will Zappa's invitation into his Hot Rats (1969): from then on, Jean Luc Ponty will never abandon his favorite instrument. His revolutionary drive as a visionary, the freshness of his ideas, the harmony of his combinations, staying at the forefront without ever falling into executive coldness (typical of current Fusion, or as it is called today New Jazz to mark a close approach to jazz with a certain distancing from rock) are well showcased in this record work (which retraces his recording career from 1975 to 1985) in tracks like "Bowing-Bowing", "Renaissance", "New Country" (which I prefer above all), "Cosmic Messenger", and "No Strings Attached" (present in a live version).

In the 90s, Ponty would combine the acoustic violin with the electric one and would devote himself mainly to various collaborations, reaching up to today. Instead of citing albums, especially for those who like to evaluate an artist live, I would mention, however, his first DVD "In Concert" (2003), in which the Frenchman, after 30 years, still demonstrates all the value and energy of his music: honestly, of great depth. Happy music to everyone.