violinist & educator

Sometimes I go through these phases, and I have no idea how they come about. But my current fascination with jazz and how it can be transferred to a non-jazz instrument (the violin, IMO) is reinvoked by the combined pressures of the upcoming Berlin gig and the making of a special album.

Stéphane Grappelli, one of the world’s most touching and inspiring artists in the history of jazz, became my fascination over the past week. I’ve listened and watched every YouTube video and read tons of interesting articles about him. I especially like this one. Because I’m genuinely interested in learning more about jazz and the style of playing jazz on the violin, I’m working on transcribing his version of Skylark and rearranging it to fit the new album. It’s a lot of work – my ears and dictation skills have become somewhat embarassingly useless, so this project will be very beneficial for me. Plus, for me to understand what I’m hearing, I need to break it down and analyze in detail. It’s definitely tricky to write out what Grappelli is playing, but if I listen to the whole structure and realize that it’s just made up of scales, arpeggios, and bluesy notes, I think it will be a lot manageable. It’s a fun project and it’s something I’ve never felt the need to do until now. I’m also thankful for a small lesson on jazz style from a friend who lives and breathes it everyday. It’s so cool!

Some favorite quotes/stories:
“Sometimes Grappelli went into other tunes spontaneously because he forgot what he was playing. One time, on stage, Grappelli asked guitarist John Etheridge in the middle of a piece what the song was. ‘I had to tell him,’ Etheridge said. ‘He’d completely forgotten.’ ”

Perhaps Grappelli’s secret was his ability to lose self-consciousness, to veer off into a transcendental state. A booking agent recalled Grappelli telling his players to stay with him when he went into his improv ‘because I don’t know where I am, I’m in another world.’