(b Avranches, 29 Sept 1942). French jazz violinist. His father was a violin teacher and the director of the school of music in Avranches, and his mother taught the piano. He played the violin and piano from the age of five and the clarinet from the age of 11. At 13 he left school to concentrate on becoming a concert violinist; he studied for two years at the Paris Conservatoire, winning the premier prix when he was 17. He then played with the Lamoureux Orchestra for three years, during which time he was introduced to jazz.
After his military service (1962–4) Ponty performed in swing and bop groups, but in March 1969 he went to Los Angeles to work with Frank Zappa. After returning to France he led a free-jazz group, the Jean-Luc Ponty Experience (c1970–72). He settled in the USA in 1973 and toured with Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, then with the second Mahavishnu Orchestra (1974–5). From 1975 into the 1980s he led jazz-rock bands, touring extensively and reaching a large audience with his recordings. In the 1990s he strove to achieve a synthesis of jazz and Afro-pop.
By developing a range of new sounds, grounded in electronic effects, Ponty has made a place for the violin in modern jazz styles. At first he simply amplified his acoustic violin in order to be heard, but from 1969 he used mainly electric violin and violectra (an electric instrument tuned an octave below the violin), which he played through distortion, Echoplex, phase shifter and wah-wah devices, sometimes combining these with the conventional mute. In 1977 he replaced the two instruments with a five-string electric violin, the lowest string on which (tuned to c) offered part of the violectra’s range. With his own bands he also plays a violin synthesizer, and in the 1980s he often reverted to the acoustic instrument, using the synthesizer to create electronic effects. The broad spectrum of sounds he produces and the contrast between them and conventional jazz timbres may be heard on the swing album Violin Summit (1966, Saba), recorded with Svend Asmussen, Stephane Grappelli and Stuff Smith, and the jazz-rock album Jean-Luc Ponty–Stephane Grappelli (1973, Amer.).
Ponty is a supreme exponent of jazz-rock. Upon the Wings of Music (1975, Atl.) marked his move away from the raucous styles of Zappa and the Mahavishnu Orchestra; instead he developed a style in which his imaginative themes and improvisations – at times soaring and lyrical, at times bluesy, biting and rhythmically complex – are accompanied by rich, highly polished ostinatos based on soul and rock rhythms.
J. Tronchot: ‘Jean-Luc Ponty: de Jef Gilson à la gloire’, Jazz hot, no.198 (1964), 8–9
M. Hennessey: ‘French Cookin’: Jean-Luc Ponty’, Down Beat, xxxiii/22 (1966), 24–5
M. Gardner: ‘Jean-Luc Ponty: Violin Virtuoso’, Jazz Journal, xxii/3 (1969), 5–6 [incl. discography]
R. Palmer: ‘Soaring with the Frenchman Jean-Luc Ponty’, Down Beat, xlii/20 (1975), 17 [incl. discography]
L. Magee and E.F von Bergen: ‘The Jazz-Rock Violin of Jean-Luc Ponty’, The Instrumentalist, xxx/6 (1976), 62–5
T. Schneckloth: ‘Jean-Luc Ponty: Synthesis for the Strings’, Down Beat, xliv/20 (1977), 12 [incl. discography]
M. Glaser and S.Grappelli: Jazz Violin (New York, 1981) [incl. transcrs.]
H. Mandel: ‘Jean-Luc Ponty’s Electronic Muse’, Down Beat, li/1 (1984), 18–20 [incl. discography]
J. Diliberto: ‘Violin Juju: Jean-Luc Ponty’, Down Beat, lviii/9 (1991), 28–9
BARRY KERNFELD