When I initially got into fusion jazz in the mid to late seventies, Jean-Luc Ponty was one of the first artists I became a fan of, and I still dig his music today. He's been an enduring figure on the scene, having recorded for over forty years with the large majority of his output falling into the jazz-rock vein. For this article I'm going to tackle two back-to-back releases of his, both of which rate above average for J-LP and catch this prolific artist at a sort of turning point in his career.
But for the uninitiated, some background. Jean-Luc Ponty was born in Avranches, France during World War II. Having first played the violin at age five, Jean-Luc received classical training and became proficient at a young age. He became interested in jazz and followed in the footsteps of the pioneering jazz violinist and fellow countryman Stephane Grappelli, as well as Stuff Smith. By his mid-twenties, Ponty was going beyond what either man had done with violin jazz when he started adapting John Coltrane's "sheets of sound" approach to the instrument.
In 1969, Ponty played in a small electric jazz combo with keyboardist George Duke and recorded his first fusion jazz record under Frank Zappa's stewardship, called King Kong. King Kong remains a high water mark for both Zappa and Ponty (and the topic for a future review if I can help it).
After dabbling in free jazz in the early seventies and briefly serving in John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, Ponty signed on with Atlantic Records in 1974. Starting with Upon The Wings Of Music, he began a ten year run with the label that bore mostly strong fusion records that rivaled Weather Report and Return To Forever in popularity.
The fusion style of these records, especially in the beginning, bore a much stronger resemblance to the high-powered, lick based jazz-rock of the Mahavishnu Orchestra more than quirky, unpredictable sophistication of his Zappa collaboration. Ponty did a great job assembling bands of crack musicians who had the chops to match solos with the leader and the depth to tackle some challenging material that sometimes revealed some classical flourishes.
As the seventies turned into the eighties, Jean-Luc Ponty's music was fading in popularity as flashy wanking gave way to softer forms of fusion and the younger crowd showed much less interest in the involved listening the genre often demanded. Mystical Adventures and Individual Choice are the two albums that best represent how Ponty reacted to these changes.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
nice review pico. i haven't bought any new Ponty since buying the live record that came out after Imaginary Voyage and Cosmic Messenger.
hmmm, i gotta go check those out again.
also, King Kong is fantastic!
2 - Pico
Thanks for the kind words, Mark, it's always especially nice to get a thumbs up from ya.
I think Live was my first J-LP purchase back when it first came out after listening to my older brother's Enigmatic Ocean first got me into Ponty in the first place.
After that, A Taste For Passion came out and was the only album from that "classic" period I didn't really like, save for a couple of songs. Then Civilized Evil followed and it was much better, I played the crap out of it, especially the second side. It was also Randy Jackson's first appearance (fretless electric bassist extraordinaire Ralphe Armstrong left after Taste).
I absolutely love King Kong, though. In all honesty, I would have raved on that one first if not for the AI season about to begin. Not that I'm a big fan of the show, but everytime I see RJ on there, I got these two albums going in my head ;&)
3 - Dave
Nice review.
Ugh. What a horrible musical tragedy.I think I saw Ponty in concert for something like 12 straight years starting in 1977, then he stopped touring regularly.
I think A Taste for Passion is stronger than Civilized Evil, though Once A Blue Planet is a great tune. Are you sure you're not being negatively influenced by the hokey cover with the polyester shirt?
I saw Ponty-Clarke-Fleck's tour and they mentioned there'd be a CD and DVD coming out -- any word?
4 - Pico
Dave, since I first got Taste For Passion when shiny shirts were still cool, I probably wasn't turned off by that. I think it was the fact that the album title wasn't his usual two words long, lol.
But seriously, I thought the record had a real nice sound to it, I can't explain why I didn't particularly care for it except to say that the songs themselves didn't do much for me (save for "Sunset Drive" and "Life Cycles").
Funny, but "Once A Blue Planet" was the one song I always avoided playing on Civilzied Evil, although I must admit Evil as a whole hadn't aged that particularly well.
I hadn't heard anything about this Ponty/Clarke/Fleck CD/DVD, but if the music contained is anything like Ponty/Clarke/DiMeola's Rites of String, I'm all over that. Thanks for the heads up!
5 - Connie Phillips
Congrats! This article has been forwarded to the Advance.net websites.