Jean-Luc Ponty

I'm a big Ponty fan. Cosmic Messenger is one of my faves. Also: Enigmatic Ocean, Mystical Adventures and A Taste For Passion. The Rite of Srings (with Al Di Meola and Stanley Clarke) is good too. But, you're right, those are all actually well-engineered discs...they shine on my rig, too. When this music is allowed to 'flow' like it was meant to, it's truly captivating.

I think of Jean-Luc Ponty as a master violinist, writer, producer, and arranger, a virtuoso. I have many of his recordings and attended eight to ten of his concerts, so many I've lost track of the exact number over the years. Perkins Palace, Pasadena, CA, the Greek ampitheater in Los Angeles, The Royal Oak Theater, Royal Oak, MI, Pine Knob amptheater, Pind Knob, MI, The Palace, Columbus, OH, and in Detroit, MI. No one else in the world like him.

For one of his shows, once it sold out, on the radio, it was announced that tickets for a second show were going on sale for that evening immediately. I quickly jumped on the phone and ordered tickets. Ended up with 3rd row seats. It was an incredible experience to be so close. The acoustics were awesome and the sound was soaring, penetrating, and brilliant! What a night that was! What a musical high..

As far as his many recordings and titles go, I'll pick one song: Listen to "Forever Together" from "No Absolute Time," just once, and tell me you're not blown away by the special qualities of it......

Imagine hearing this song live and in concert... my Lord!

Ditto all of the above. I opened a sealed Nautilus copy of Cosmic Messenger a couple of months ago. Get one if you can.

I went to school with his daughters - his oldest, Clara, is a fine pianist, and has recorded a couple of albums, though they are more "new age" than jazz. Both she and her sister Eva are very beautiful women as well. Clara was based in New York for awhile, but she may have moved back to Europe by now.

Have never heard that one--how is the material/style compared to Aurora or Imaginary Voyage?

I was fortunate to see him with Zappa, then with Mahavishnu Orch II, and finally his own band. The boy can play!

Cosmic Messenger is a more focused, more layered continuation of Imaginary Voyage (tho the title track to that album is about as visual a musical piece as I can think of!). CM is definitely more complex and mature than Aurora - which is fine in its own rite.

@learsfool - I had forgotten that Clara was a produced musician herself, tho now I remember her cd's and how she was publicized on JLP's own website back in the 90's.

And I love how you're talking about daughters with a screenname like "learsfool". Awesome!

I had a few of his albums and saw him twice in concert but my recollections are fuzzy as to where and what. Masterful musician and talented performer. It's nice to know that others here can refresh my memory through their recollections.

All the best,
Nonoise

Simao, thanks for noticing about the daughters and the screen name! :)

Yeah, I think both of Clara's albums I know of were done in the mid to late 90's. Don't know if she's recorded any since - I know she still performs, but I believe mostly in Europe now. Her sister Eva is a yoga instructor, in Switzerland, I believe.

I think that Clara is on at least one of Jean Luc's albums as well - I know she used to perform with him from time to time.

This is precisely why I peruse "Music" threads here. It sends me running to parts of my collection that have sat idle far too long. When one can allow music of this quality to slowly migrate to the nether regions of the repertoire, the collection is just too damn big! Thank you for mentioning Jean Luc-Ponty.

Incantations For World Peace was the song that introduced me to JLP. Modern Time Blues is one of my "open the moonroof and turn it up" songs.

I picked up a vinyl copy of Aurora in mint shape for three bucks the other week @ a thrift shop.

He's obviously got prodigious skills, (too bad he's sometimes chosen to go for a very low common denominator and to put out cheese whiz). His Plays the music of FZ recording provided him w/ a level of compositional meat that he's never been able to develop on his own, (to be fair writing like that puts the bar pretty dang high). His Sunday Walk record also seems a lot more like the real thing than a lot of his later releases.