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The earliest use of the violin in a jazz-related context was as a solo instrument in the ragtime orchestras of the early 20th century. Most orchestral arrangements of ragtime included parts for one or two violins, which were of equal melodic and structural importance to that of the clarinet or trumpet, but gradually the violin became subservient to the brass and woodwind instruments in the ensemble.

Gradually the violin reasserted its position as a solo instrument, particularly owing to the work of four musicians – Joe Venuti, Eddie South, stephane Grappelli and Stuff Smith. Venuti established his reputation through his duet recordings with the guitarist Eddie Lang in the mid-1920s. Similarly, Grappelli formed an association with the guitarist Django Reinhardt in the Quintette du Hot Club de France (fig.20). Smith played an important role from the mid-1930s as a leader and risk-taking soloist in small swing groups. South, a classically trained swing musician with a fine technique, was influenced by gypsy music (he recorded with Reinhardt and Grappelli).

Other significant violinists of the swing era were Svend Asmussen, Ray Perry and the rhapsodic Ray Nance. Nance’s best work was as a member of Duke Ellington’s orchestra. During the 1940s Perry became a transitional figure between the harmonic invention of Smith and the new bop style. But despite the influence exerted by Smith on the bop trumpet virtuoso Dizzy Gillespie, bop violin lacked solid representation on record until the work of Dick Wetmore and Harry Lookofsky in the 1950s. Lookofsky, who had played in the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Toscanini for 12 years, recorded brilliant bop in which his solos, as well as his multitrack section work, bear all the hallmarks of convincing improvisation but were executed almost entirely from written arrangements. Inspired by Smith, the early explorations of the Frenchman jean-luc Ponty and the Polish MichaÅ‚ Urbaniak in the 1960s were in a bop vein, before they turned to free jazz and fusion. The classically trained Hungarian, Elek Bacsik, recorded virtuoso bop improvisations in the USA in the 1970s. In the 1980s Max Roach developed convincing bop arrangements for strings in his double quartet.

Different approaches to violin technique have led to a wide range of styles among jazz players: some have drawn on the techniques of classical and traditional music players, while others have invented original methods. Grappelli retained the tonal aesthetic of the classical violin tradition, and his precise, light sensitivity was itself an influence on virtuoso concert violinists such as Paul Zukofsky. Venuti and Asmussen made more use of the instrument’s harmonic resources and employed the bow in a percussive manner. Smith revolutionized the vocabulary of jazz violinists with his wild, biting attack, wide vibrato, unorthodox fingerings and expressive intonation. Venuti devised a novel bowing technique that involved wrapping the bow hair around all four strings, and holding the stick of the bow beneath the body of the violin. Perry introduced the idea of singing in unison with the violin, a device quickly taken up by several double bass players and by Asmussen.

The acoustical and musical demands of many types of modern jazz and rock have led to modifications in the way in which the violin is played. Jazz musicians have always found that the relatively quiet sound of the instrument has placed them at a disadvantage. Following early acoustic-amplified designs, such as the Stroh violin, Smith from the late 1930s and Perry in the 40s favoured conventionally built, electrically amplified violins, while Ginger Smock recorded in 1946 on a solid-bodied electric instrument. Since the 1980s the majority of jazz violinists have relied on amplification, making use of a microphone, a transducer or a purpose-built instrument with integral transducer. Electronic enhancement devices are also common.

Players have shown great stylistic flexibility in jazz. Zbigniew Seifert, for example, executed fast trills as a substitute for vibrato, while Lookofsky and Ponty virtually abandoned vibrato altogether. Others, such as Michael White and John Blake, have experimented with non-Western tonal systems or have made extensive use of sliding pitch. Early free-jazz violinists, often classically trained, such as Michel Sampson and Ramsey Ameen, took their cue mainly from the explorations of Ornette Coleman. Coleman is self-taught on the instrument, and performs in an intense, percussive manner using unorthodox fingerings and bowing positions, but uses the violin mainly for colouristic purposes. Two violinists who came to the fore in the immediate wake of Coleman are Leroy Jenkins and Billy Bang, both of whom consistently play outside the equal-tempered system. Bang traces his lineage to Stuff Smith while Jenkins traces his primarily to Eddie South, bringing to the idiom a virtuoso classical technique. Coleman and Jenkins have both written concert pieces for string quartets.

A resurgence of interest in the improvisational possibilities of the violin has spawned a number of exceptionally gifted violinists who have successfully combined free playing and organized structures in individualistic ways during the 1990s. India Cooke displays lyrical sensitivity and imaginative strength, free from cliché. Mat Maneri’s enquiring work is by turns pointillistic and arching, on a variety of acoustic and electric instruments. Jim Nolet displays wonderfully controlled dynamics and stylistic shifts. Examples of more conventional approaches to improvisation are heard in the playing of Mark Feldman and Regina Carter. Feldman epitomizes what might be termed a flash-classical approach. Malcolm Goldstein is an example of a radical improvising violinist who has recorded works by such composers as Ornette Coleman and John Cage.

Efforts by non-improvising concert violinists to record as soloists with jazz musicians have almost invariably resulted in violinistic compromise and musical failure. An exception might be made for the Suite for Violin and Jazz Trio released in 1977 by Pinchas Zukerman with the composer Claude Bolling. Similarly, the French, classically trained jazz violinist Michel Warlop recorded some of his best playing in his ambitious Swing Concerto (1942), parts of which are Gershwin-inspired. A number of 1940s recordings by Heifetz of pieces by Gershwin and others are successful examples of jazz-tinged performances by a virtuoso concert violinist.

Some musicians have sought ways of expanding the range of the violin downwards. Ponty, Urbaniak and Bacsik played the violectra, an electric instrument sounding an octave below the conventional violin. Ponty and Urbaniak later took up a five-string electric violin (the lowest string on which was tuned to c) and Urbaniak performs on a six-string model (with the addition of a string tuned to F). The acoustic tenor violin, pitched an octave below the violin, has been used in jazz to best effect by Lookofsky. Leroy Jenkins and Jim Nolet double on viola. Lakshminarayana Shankar plays a ten-string violin with two necks, an instrument that he designed himself.

(ii) Blues.

During the 1920s and 30s many African-American violinists, either self-taught or legitimately trained, played obbligatos on Chicago and New York recordings by blues and vaudeville vocalists and, to a lesser extent on intrumentals. These included Leon Abbey, Clarence Black, Leroy Parker with Mamie Smith, Leroy Pickett, Robert Robbins with Bessie Smith, and Cordy Williams. The remarkable classically trained Angelina Rivera was the first black woman to record in the genre, with Josephine Baker in Paris in 1926. This tradition differed somewhat from the raw blues of string band fiddlers such as Eddie Anthony or Will Batts. Nevertheless, urban as well as country styles may trace their origins to 19th-century plantation fiddling, often on home-made instruments. Several guitarists, most notably Lonnie Johnson, doubled on violin, as did the electric blues guitarist Clarence Gatemouth Brown from the 1940s. Later electric blues violinists included Papa John Creach and Don Sugarcane Harris, both of whom enjoyed second careers in rock bands. Remo [Ray] Biondi, who doubled on swing guitar and violin, is a rare example of a white American violinist who recorded raw, authentic blues with black Americans, such as Roosevelt Sykes and Jimmy Reed, in the 1950s. Like many jazz musicians, the urbane Eddie South recorded a number of blues instrumentals, while Stuff Smith frequently turned his attention to the form to incisive effect. From the 1970s, Leroy Jenkins, in particular, has used the structure and emotion of the blues in several of his improvisations and compositions.

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