Jazz violin
Encyclopedia
Electric violin
An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument purposely made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body...
to improvise and perform utilizing scales and chord progressions unique to the compositions of Jazz musicians . The earliest references to jazz performance using the violin as a solo instrument was during the first decades of the 20th century. Early jazz violinists were Eddie South
Eddie South
Eddie South was an American jazz violinist.-Biography:South was a classical violin prodigy who switched to jazz because of limited opportunities for African-American musicians, and started his career playing in vaudeville and jazz orchestras with Freddie Keppard, Jimmy Wade, Charles Elgar, and...
, who played violin with Jimmy Wade
Jimmy Wade
Jimmy Wade was an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader.Wade began leading groups in the Chicago area about 1916. He played in California and Seattle, Washington with Lucille Hegamin, and then moved with her to New York City, where they played together until 1922...
's Dixielanders in Chicago; Stuff Smith
Stuff Smith
Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith , better known as Stuff Smith, was a jazz violinist. He is known well for the song "If You're a Viper".-Biography:...
; Claude Williams
Claude Williams
Claude Williams may refer to:*Claude Williams , American jazz musician*Claude Williams , Canadian politician*Claude Williams , Major League Baseball player known as Lefty Williams...
, who played with Andy Kirk
Andy Kirk
Andrew Dewey Kirk was a jazz saxophonist and tubist best known as a bandleader of the "Twelve Clouds of Joy," popular during the swing era....
and his Twelve Clouds of Joy; Joe Venuti, who is best known for his work with guitarist Eddie Lang
Eddie Lang
Eddie Lang was an American jazz guitarist, regarded as the Father of Jazz Guitar. He played a Gibson L-4 and L-5 guitar, providing great influence for many guitarists, including Django Reinhardt.-Biography:...
during the 1920s, and Georgie Stoll
Georgie Stoll
Georgie Stoll was a musical director, conductor, composer and jazz violinist, associated with the Golden Age of MGM musicals and performers from the 1940s to 1960s. Born George Martin Stoll, he was also later credited as George E...
, who became an orchestra leader and film music director. Since that time there have been many superb improvising violinists including Stéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....
and Jean-Luc Ponty
Jean-Luc Ponty
Jean-Luc Ponty is a French virtuoso violinist and jazz composer.- Early years:Ponty was born into a family of classical musicians on 29 September 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano...
. While not primarily jazz violinists, Darol Anger
Darol Anger
-Career:Darol Anger entered popular music at the age of 21 as a founding member of The David Grisman Quintet. Anger played fiddle to David Grisman's mandolin in The David Grisman Quintet's 1977 debut. He co-founded the Turtle Island String Quartet with David Balakrishnan in 1985 and performed,...
and Mark O'Connor
Mark O'Connor
Mark O'Connor is an American bluegrass, jazz, country and classical violinist fiddler, composer and music teacher. O'Connor's music is wide-ranging, critically acclaimed, and he has received numerous awards for both his playing and his composition...
have spent significant parts of their careers playing jazz, while emerging artists like Sara Caswell and Jeremy Kittel have devoted themselves almost exclusively to jazz both progressive and "old-fashioned." Violins also appear in string ensembles or big bands supplying orchestral backgrounds to many jazz recordings.
The violin is a bowed
Bow (music)
In music, a bow is moved across some part of a musical instrument, causing vibration which the instrument emits as sound. The vast majority of bows are used with string instruments, although some bows are used with musical saws and other bowed idiophones....
string instrument
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
with four strings
Strings (music)
A string is the vibrating element that produces sound in string instruments, such as the guitar, harp, piano, and members of the violin family. Strings are lengths of a flexible material kept under tension so that they may vibrate freely, but controllably. Strings may be "plain"...
usually tuned in perfect fifth
Perfect fifth
In classical music from Western culture, a fifth is a musical interval encompassing five staff positions , and the perfect fifth is a fifth spanning seven semitones, or in meantone, four diatonic semitones and three chromatic semitones...
s. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family
Violin family
The violin family of musical instruments was developed in Italy in the sixteenth century. The standard modern violin family consists of the violin, viola, cello, and double bass....
of string instruments, which also includes the viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
, cello, and double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
. A violinist produces sound by either drawing a bow (normally held in the right hand) across one or more strings (which may be stopped by the fingers of the other hand to produce a full range of pitches), plucking the strings (with either hand), or a variety of other techniques
Playing the violin
Playing the violin entails holding the instrument under the chin, supported by the left shoulder . The strings are sounded either by drawing the bow across them , or sometimes by plucking them...
. In jazz-rock fusion styles, jazz violinists may use an electric violin plugged into an instrument amplifier
Instrument amplifier
An instrument amplifier is an electronic amplifier that converts the often barely audible or purely electronic signal from musical instruments such as an electric guitar, an electric bass, or an electric keyboard into an electronic signal capable of driving a loudspeaker that can be heard by the...
along with effects such as a wah pedal or a distortion fuzzbox.
Traditional and Swing era
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France
Quintette du Hot Club de France
Quintette du Hot Club de France was a jazz group founded in France in 1934 by guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli, and active in one form or another until 1948....
with guitarist Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...
. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands. After the war he appeared on hundreds of recordings including sessions with Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, jazz pianists Oscar Peterson
Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career...
and Claude Bolling
Claude Bolling
Claude Bolling , is a renowned French jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and occasional actor.He was born in Cannes, studied at the Nice Conservatory, then in Paris. A child prodigy, by age 14 he was playing jazz piano professionally, with Lionel Hampton, Roy Eldridge, and Kenny Clarke...
, and jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. Svend Asmussen
Svend Asmussen
Svend Asmussen is a jazz violinist from Denmark, known as "The Fiddling Viking". Asmussen grew up in a musical family, starting violin lessons at age 7. At age 16 he first heard recordings by jazz violin great Joe Venuti and began to emulate his style...
(b. 1916) is a jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
violinist from Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
who worked with Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...
, and Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
. Asmussen was invited by Ellington to play on the Jazz Violin Session recording in 1963 with Stéphane Grappelli and Ray Nance
Ray Nance
Ray Willis Nance was a jazz trumpeter, violinist and singer.Nance is best known for his long association with Duke Ellington through most of the 1940s and 1950s, after he was hired to replace Cootie Williams in 1940...
.
Jazz fusion
Jean-Luc PontyJean-Luc Ponty
Jean-Luc Ponty is a French virtuoso violinist and jazz composer.- Early years:Ponty was born into a family of classical musicians on 29 September 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano...
(born 1942) is a virtuoso French violinist and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
composer. By the mid 1960s he had moved towards jazz, recording with Stéphane Grappelli and Stuff Smith
Stuff Smith
Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith , better known as Stuff Smith, was a jazz violinist. He is known well for the song "If You're a Viper".-Biography:...
. Ponty's attraction to jazz was propelled by Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
's and John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
's music, which led him to adopt the electric violin. Critic Joachim Berendt wrote that "Since Ponty, the jazz violin has been a different instrument" and of his "style of phrasing that corresponds to early and middle John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
" and his "brilliance and fire".
In 1967 he visited the US for the Monterey Jazz Festival
Monterey Jazz Festival
The Monterey Jazz Festival is one of the longest consecutively running jazz festivals. It debuted on October 3, 1958 and was founded by San Francisco jazz radio broadcaster Jimmy Lyons.-History:...
Ponty subsequently worked with Stéphane Grappelli, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
, and appeared on more than 70 recordings.
His symphonic approach to jazz fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
made him a popular fusion artist of the 1970s. In 1972, he featured prominently on Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
's Honky Chateau
Honky Château
Honky Château is the fifth studio album by British singer/songwriter Elton John, released in 1972. In 2003, the album was ranked number 357 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. It was certified Gold on 7/24/1972 and Platinum on 10/11/1995 by the R.I.A.A...
album. In 1977, he pioneered the use of the 5-string electric violin, with a lower C string. He sometimes also uses a 6-string electric violin called the Violectra
Violectra
Violectra is the trade name of an electric violin produced by Barcus-Berry with the pitch equivalent of an acoustic tenor violin, sometimes called baritone violin. It is tuned an octave below normal violin; i.e. between viola and cello. It was developed in USA by Barcus-Berry in the early 1960s but...
, with low C and F strings – not to be confused with the violectra he played from the late 1960s to the mid-80s which had 4 strings, but tuned an octave lower. Ponty was among the first to combine the violin with MIDI, electronic distortion boxes, phase shifters, and wah-wah pedals. This resulted in his signature, almost synthesizer-like sound. In 2005, Ponty formed the acoustic jazz fusion supergroup
Supergroup (music)
In the late 1960s, the term supergroup was coined to describe "a rock music group whose performers are already famous from having performed individually or in other groups"....
Trio!
TRIO!
Trio! was a one-time acoustic jazz fusion supergroup during 2005. It consisted of bassist Stanley Clarke , jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty , and banjoist Béla Fleck .Much of the material performed by Trio! was from The Rite of Strings, with Fleck...
with bassist Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke is an American jazz musician and composer known for his innovative and influential work on double bass and electric bass guitar as well as for his numerous film and television scores...
and banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
ist Béla Fleck
Béla Fleck
Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is an American banjo player. Widely acknowledged as one of the world's most innovative and technically proficient banjo players, he is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.-Early life and career details:Fleck was born in...
.
Electric violins
Instrument amplifier
An instrument amplifier is an electronic amplifier that converts the often barely audible or purely electronic signal from musical instruments such as an electric guitar, an electric bass, or an electric keyboard into an electronic signal capable of driving a loudspeaker that can be heard by the...
. Moreover, the use of an electric violin allows the violinist to apply effects such as a wah pedal, phaser
Phaser
Phaser may refer to:* Barber pole phaser is an analog synthesizer specially designed to create Shepard tones, an Auditory illusion.* Endosulfan, an organic compound* Phaser , in the Star Trek fictional universe...
, reverb, or a distortion fuzzbox, to create unusual new sounds.
An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electric signal output of its sound, and is generally considered to be a specially constructed instrument which can either be an electro-acoustic violin capable of producing both acoustic sound and electric signal or an electric violin capable of producing only electric signal. To be effective as an acoustic violin, electro-acoustic violins retain much of the resonating body of the violin, often looking very much like, sometimes even identical to, an acoustic violin or fiddle. They are often varnished with bright colours and made from alternative materials to wood. The first specially built electric violins date back to the late 1930s and were made by Victor Pfeil, Oskar Vierling, George Eisenberg, Benjamin Miessner, George Beauchamp
George Beauchamp
George Delmetia Beauchamp was an inventor of musical instruments and a co-founder of National Stringed Instrument Corporation and Rickenbacker guitars....
, Hugo Benioff
Hugo Benioff
Victor Hugo Benioff was an American seismologist and a professor at the California Institute of Technology. He is best remembered for his work in charting the location of deep earthquakes in the Pacific Ocean....
and Fredray Kislingbury. The majority of the first electric violinists were musicians playing jazz and popular music. Electric violins typically have piezoelectric transducer
Transducer
A transducer is a device that converts one type of energy to another. Energy types include electrical, mechanical, electromagnetic , chemical, acoustic or thermal energy. While the term transducer commonly implies the use of a sensor/detector, any device which converts energy can be considered a...
pickups
Pickup (music technology)
A pickup device is a transducer that captures mechanical vibrations, usually from suitably equipped stringed instruments such as the electric guitar, electric bass guitar, Chapman Stick, or electric violin, and converts them to an electrical signal that is amplified, recorded, or broadcast.-...
and/or magnetic pickups built into the body of the instrument. Like an electric guitar, an electric violin may also have volume and tone potentiometer
Potentiometer
A potentiometer , informally, a pot, is a three-terminal resistor with a sliding contact that forms an adjustable voltage divider. If only two terminals are used , it acts as a variable resistor or rheostat. Potentiometers are commonly used to control electrical devices such as volume controls on...
knobs for controlling the sound of the instrument.
Like other electro-acoustic or electric instruments, an electric violin is often patched into a preamplifier
Preamplifier
A preamplifier is an electronic amplifier that prepares a small electrical signal for further amplification or processing. A preamplifier is often placed close to the sensor to reduce the effects of noise and interference. It is used to boost the signal strength to drive the cable to the main...
, impedance-matching device, and/or a Direct Injection
DI
DI, the two-letter abbreviation, has a number of meanings:Natural Sciences* Band 3, a protein* Deionized water , a type of water deprived of the dissolved impurities of ionic nature...
(DI box) box before it is routed to the PA system, electronic effects, or the instrument amplifier.
See also
- Swing (jazz performance style)Swing (jazz performance style)In jazz and related musical styles, the term swing is used to describe the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or "groove" created by the musical interaction between the performers, especially when the music creates a "visceral response" such as feet-tapping or head-nodding...
, a term of praise for playing that has a strong rhythmic "groove" or drive - List of popular music violinists
- List of jazz violinists
- Stroh violinStroh violinStroh violin, Strohviol, or Strohviol, is a trade name for a horn-violin, or violinophone—a violin that amplifies its sound through a metal resonator and metal horns rather than a wooden sound box as on a standard violin. The instrument is named after its designer, John Matthias Augustus Stroh, an...