Jean-Luc Ponty is a French violinist, active since the early 1960s and best known for his twelve-album run of jazz-rock titles on Atlantic Records. He began recording as a leader with Jazz Long Playing (1964) and Sunday Walk (1967), establishing a technically precise, rhythmically adventurous style that integrated violin into modern jazz ensembles. His early […]
Michał Urbaniak (1943–2025) was a Polish violinist, saxophonist, and composer who first recorded with The Jazz Rockers, a Warsaw post-bop quintet. He debuted as a bandleader with two albums in 1971/72 on Spiegelei. In 1973, he moved stateside and made numerous jazz-funk albums, many with his then-wife, singer Urszula Dudziak. Early Career Urbaniak was born […]
Scarlet Rivera is an American violinist from Chicago who emerged as part of Bob Dylan’s 1976 Rolling Thunder Revue, then led the 1977/78 Warner albums Scarlet Rivera and Scarlet Fever. Background Donna Shea was born in 1950 in Joliet, Illinois. Her father worked as a chemist at an oil refinery, while her mother managed the Shea […]
Zbigniew Seifert (June 6, 1946 — Feb. 15, 1979) was a 1970s Polish jazz-rock violinist who appeared on albums by Tomasz Stańko, Volker Kriegel, Jan “Ptaszyn” Wróblewski, Joachim Kühn, and Jasper van’t Hof during the first half of the decade. In 1974, he participated in the Hans Koller / Wolfgang Dauner super-project Kunstkopfindianer. Between 1976 and […]
Michael White (May 24, 1930 — Dec. 6, 2016) was an American violinist and composer from Houston. He established his recording career through work with John Handy, Pharoah Sanders, and Sun Ra, then joined Mike Nock, Ron McClure, and Eddie Marshall in the Fourth Way for a run of late-1960s electric jazz albums. White maintained […]
Don “Sugarcane” Harris (June 19, 1938 — Nov. 30, 1999) was an American jazz-funk violinist from Pasadena. He first recorded with Dewey Terry in the Squires and Don & Dewey, whose Specialty singles included “Justine,” “Farmer John,” “Big Boy Pete,” and “I’m Leaving It Up to You.” Harris subsequently worked with Little Richard, Frank Zappa, […]
Michel Ripoche is a French violinist who emerged in the brass-rock band Zoo at the turn of the 1970s. Between 1975 and 1987, he released four albums and a collaborative set on Atlantic, Spalax, and Musique-Image. Backgrounds Michel Ripoche emerged in late-1960s France as a multi-instrumentalist adept at violin, tenor saxophone, and trombone. In October […]
