Pop Quiz - Name Your Favorite Jazz Violinists

Quick -- name your top two favorite jazz violinists.  I'll wait while you think about it.  

Every year the big jazz magazines like DownBeat and JazzTimes publish polls naming the top musicians in various instrument categories as voted on by their readers and music critics.  While it's still a great recognition for the winners, nowadays you hardly even hear about the results. 

However, back in the 50s and 60s, when jazz was much more important, the announcement of the poll winners was a big deal.  Record labels would take out ads in the trade magazines to celebrate wins by their artists, while interviewers who wrote profiles and critics who wrote liner notes would almost always manage to work in a mention of how many times the performer had won one of the annual polls. 

What's more, the winners of the various polls were often featured in special showcase concerts and would record albums together to mark their poll wins. 

Historically, the awards for individual instruments have included trumpet, saxophone (with separate winners for soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone), guitar, piano, bass, drums, trombone, clarinet, flute, organ, vibes, and violin.

In terms of popularity and sheer number of releases, the major solo/lead instruments in jazz are the saxophone (all four versions), followed in some order by the piano, trumpet, and guitar.  You can probably name a half dozen jazz artists for each of these instruments off the top of your head.  The same goes for bass and drums.  But things get a little trickier when we get to the "secondary" lead instruments like trombone, clarinet, flute, organ, vibes, and violin.  So, for those of you who want to play along at home, see if you can think of two jazz musicians for each of these six secondary instruments.  To make it more interesting, only include performers who have released albums featuring the instrument in their own names.  Ready?  Go!

How did you do?  I've got J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding on trombone; Herbie Mann and Hubert Laws on flute; Lionel Hampton and Cal Tjader on vibes; Shirley Scott and Jimmy Smith on organ; Buddy DeFranco and Pee Wee Russell on clarinet, and Joe Venuti and Stephane Grappelli on violin.  I promise I didn't just look those up.

While I probably could have come up with another three or four for all of the other instruments, I have to admit that for violin, Venuti and Grappelli are the only two that came to mind.  All the other non-classical violinists I could think of, including Jean-Luc Ponty, Vassar Clements, Papa John Creach, Doug Kershaw, Nigel Kennedy, and Mark O'Connor, are more bluegrass, cajun, rock, pop, fusion or something else other than actual jazz musicians.  While I was wracking my brain, I did remember that violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman teamed up with Andre Previn and jazz greats Shelly Manne, Red Mitchell, and Jim Hall to make a fun, swinging jazz album called A Different Kind Of Blues in 1980 (above right).  If you see it, it's definitely worth picking up.  (Their 1981 follow-up, It's A Breeze, not so much.)  After I finally gave up and did a quick Wikipedia search, I got a duh moment when I saw the name of the great pioneering jazz violinist Stuff Smith.

Joe Venuti

I suspect I'm not alone in having difficulty coming up with the names of jazz violinists.  The fact is that historically, the violin has not been a particularly important instrument in jazz music.  The heyday of jazz violin was in the 20s and 30s, and began when Joe Venuti (b. 1903) teamed up with his boyhood friend from Philadelphia, guitarist Eddie Lang, to cut a bunch of top-selling singles.  From the late 1920s into the early 1930s, Venuti's virtuosity and seemingly effortless improvisational ability defined the role of the violin in jazz music.  During this time, Venuti became one of the most in-demand performers in the business and worked extensively with top acts such as Benny Goodman, the Dorsey Brothers, Bing Crosby, and Paul Whiteman's Orchestra.

As it turns out, Stephane Grappelli (b. 1908) was first introduced to jazz violin when he heard Venuti play with Whiteman's orchestra in Paris in 1928.  After working to perfect his own jazz style, Grappelli joined up with guitar great Django Reinhardt in 1934 to form the Paris-based Quintette du Hot Club de France.  Until the war started in 1939 (and Grappelli fled to England), the Hot Club quintet's up-tempo, gypsy swing band was the hottest jazz act on the Continent.  

Stephane Grappelli

Alas, by the end of the war, jazz violin was no longer popular on either side of the Atlantic.  As bebop began to dominate jazz, Venuti and Grappelli faded into years of relative obscurity.  They both continued to play in clubs and to record sporadically, but it wasn't until the 60s that they would be "rediscovered" by a new generation of jazz fans.  Before he died in 1978, Venuti was touring regularly and had recorded dozens of new LPs, hooking up with such notable players as Zoot Sims, Bucky Pizzarelli, and Earl Hines.  Grappelli lived until 1997, and enjoyed a three-decade long career resurgence that saw him playing and recording with Barney Kessel, McCoy Tyner, Gary Burton, Jean-Luc Ponty, Hank Jones, Joe Pass, and many others.  He also cut several surprisingly popular jazz records with classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin.

Venuti and Grappelli made one LP together.  It was recorded in Paris in 1969 and has the somewhat awkward title of Venupelli Blues (below).  (Better than Grapnuti Blues, I guess.)  The record isn't the best work of either performer, but it's a fun romp through a set of (mostly) standards that sounds like it was probably a hoot to record.

If you're looking at add some jazz violin to your music collection, it shouldn't be hard.  Between the two of them, Venuti and Grappelli recorded well over 200 LPs.  Since Grappelli performed and recorded well into the 90s, he is much better known that Venuti.  However, demand for either artist's LPs isn't high, and you can often find their records for $5 or less in used record stores.  (And sometimes even in the one dollar bins on the floor.)  I'm a big fan of violin jazz and gypsy swing -- it always puts me in a good mood -- so I pick up their albums whenever I see them.

Stuff Smith

In addition to Venuti and Grappelli, Stuff Smith is the other seminal figure in the history of jazz violin.  Born in Ohio in 1909, Smith grew up in Cincinnati and played in bands in the Midwest and Texas before marrying a woman from Buffalo and moving there in 1930.  Smith got his big break in 1935 when his Buffalo group (which included Cozy Cole on drums) was hired as the house band at the Onyx Club on 52nd St. in Manhattan.  Smith, who was also a popular vocalist, made several hit records in the late 30s, including "If You're A Viper" (Harlem slang for a marijuana smoker), and "I'se a-Muggin' " (no idea).  Smith played with many of the founding fathers of bebop, including Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker.  He toured regularly in Europe (he moved there permanently in 1965) and recorded and performed several times with Stephane Grappelli in Paris.  Smith died in 1967 and is buried in Copenhagen.  I was shocked to find that I only have one LP by Smith in my collection (a terrific 1963 session with guitarist Herb Ellis called Herb Ellis & Stuff Smith Together!).  I'll be looking to add a few more disks by Smith posthaste.  

Regina Carter

Since I couldn't think of any other notable jazz violinists after Grappelli died in the 90s, I started wondering who the heck has been winning the poll for best jazz violinist for the last 25 years -- or if they even have a category for jazz violin anymore.  After a little research, I'm pleased to report that there is still a jazz violin category, and since 1995 the poll has been dominated by Regina Carter.  While I had certainly heard of Carter, I knew very little about her or her work.  After doing some research and streaming a bunch of her music, I was delighted to be able to "discover" Carter for myself.  Since 1995, when her debut solo album, Regina Carter, took the jazz world by storm, Carter has released nine more albums, been nominated for three Grammys, and received a MacArthur Fellow "genius" grant.  She has worked with Wynton Marsalis, Kenny Barron, Max Roach, and a host of other top jazz and pop artists.  Her music combines elements of R&B, Afro-Cuban, Folk, World, pop, as well as more traditional bebop and swing.  She cites Stuff Smith as one of her musical influences.  

The future of jazz violin appears to be in very good hands.

Enjoy the music!