Newspaper Article

Jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty twice a pioneer

Webb, Betty

1995

Overview

Violinist Jean-Luc Ponty didn't plan on being a musical pioneer but that's what he ended up being -- twice. ``When I began playing jazz, I had to hide it from my teachers because it was totally taboo,'' says Ponty, who trained at the classical Paris Conservatory and began his professional music career as a member of the prestigious Concert Lamoureux Symphony Orchestra. ``Fortunately, my friends who loved jazz were very supportive.'' ``Jazz was a new language I had to learn, it was that foreign to me,'' Ponty says. ``You have to remember that classical music was my mother tongue. Both my parents were classical musicians and I had been trained that way ever since I first picked up the instrument. But I became passionate on the subject of jazz and applied every part of myself to it.''

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