Within a year - at the urging of Zappa who wanted him to join his band the Mothers of Invention - Ponty emigrated with his wife and two young daughters to America and made his home in Los Angeles. In 1972, Elton John invited Ponty to contribute to his Honky Chateau #1 hit album. In 1969, Frank Zappa composed the music for Jean-LucвЂ™s solo album King Kong (Blue Note). In turn, the violinist soon found his signature talents in demand by top recording artists the world over. Through the late-60s and early 70s, Ponty achieved mounting critical praise and popularity across Europe. recording contract with the World Pacific label (Electric Connection with the Gerald Wilson Big Band, Jean-Luc Ponty Experience with the George Duke Trio).

Jean-Luc's first-ever American appearance garnered thunderous applause and led to a U.S. In 1967, John Lewis of The Modern Jazz Quartet invited Ponty to perform at the Monterey Jazz Festival. A 1966 live album called Violin Summit united Ponty on stage in Basel, Switzerland with such notable string talents as Svend Asmussen, StГ©phane Grappelli and Stuff Smith. Ponty's notoriety grew with remarkable leaps and by 1964, at age 22, he released his debut solo album for Philips, Jazz Long Playing. Critics said then that he was the first jazz violinist to be as exciting as a saxophonist.

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. Read moreДЄt 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. В“Naturally, I had to make a choice, so I took a chance with jazzВ”, says Jean-Luc. The demands of this doomed schedule eventually brought him to a crossroads. 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. Fueled by an all-encompassing creative passion, Jean-Luc soon felt the need to express his jazz voice through his main instrument, the violin. A growing interest in the jazz sounds of Miles Davis and John Coltrane compelled him to take up the tenor saxophone. It proved a life-changing jumping-off point. 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. In turn, he was immediately hired by one of the major symphony orchestras, Concerts Lamoureux, where he played for three years. At sixteen, he was admitted to the Conservatoire National SupГ©rieur de Musique de Paris, graduating two years later with the institution's highest award, Premier Prix. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano. Ponty was born in a family of classical musicians on Septemin Avranches, France. He is widely regarded as an innovator who has applied his unique visionary spin that has expanded the vocabulary of modern music. Jean-Luc Ponty is a pioneer and undispute master of violin in the arena of jazz and rock.

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