Legendary French violinist Jean Luc Ponty and
his band will be bringing their “Atlantic Years” tour to the US beginning late
May 2017! Jean Luc Ponty is a pioneer and undisputed master of the violin in
the arena of jazz and rock. He is widely regarded as an innovator who has
applied his unique visionary spin that has expanded the vocabulary of modern
music.
Says Jean Luc, “We're calling it 'The Atlantic Years' tour
since I am touring with my band from the late 70's - 80's with whom I recorded
several albums for Atlantic Records.”
The Jean Luc Ponty Band features:
Jean Luc Ponty – violin
Wally Minko – keyboards
Jamie Glaser – guitars
Rayford Griffin – drums
Baron Browne – bass
Jean Luc Ponty Band 2017 US tour dates:
May 30 – Portland, OR - Aladdin Theater
May 31 – Seattle, WA - The Neptune
June 01 – Eugene, OR - John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts
June 02 – Los Angeles, CA - The Saban Theater Beverly Hills
June 04 – San Francisco, CA - Regency Ballroom
June 05 – Santa Cruz, CA - Rio Theatre
June 07 – San Juan Capistrano, CA - The Coach House
June 08 – Agoura Hills, CA - The Canyon
June 09 – Scottsdale, AZ - Center For the Arts
June 10 – Las Vegas, NV - Allante Casino
June 14 – Boulder, CO - Boulder Theater
June 16 – Dallas, TX - Granada Theater
June 17 – Austin, TX - One World Theatre
June 20 – Chicago, IL - City Winery
June 21 – Detroit, MI - Chene Park
June 23 – Niagara Falls, NY - Seneca Niagara Casino
June 24 – Saratoga Springs, NY - Performing Arts Center
June 25 – NYC - B.B. King
After studying classical violin at the Paris Conservatory,
Jean Luc Ponty turned to jazz in the 60's. Thanks to his revolutionary style he
collaborated with some of the best European and American musicians such as Eddy
Louiss, Daniel Humair, Niels Henning-Ørsted Pedersen, John Lewis, Lalo
Schifrin, and Quincy Jones. He became the first bebop violinist and US jazz
magazine “Down Beat” created a violin category for him in its critics' poll,
until then violin was in the 'miscellaneous instruments' category. His
pioneering work on the electric violin in the 70's attracted the attention of
pop and rock musicians, he recorded with Elton John and participated to several
tours and legendary recordings with Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention and John
McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra. In 1975 he founded his own band and became
one of the most prominent figures of the jazz-fusion movement in the USA,
selling millions of albums that all reached the top of the US charts. Ponty's
most recent album “The Atacama Experience” is considered as one if his best and
to this day Ponty keeps touring with his band around the world.
Ponty also collaborates on occasional projects such as “The
Rite of Strings” with Stanley Clarke and Al Di Meola. In 2011 Ponty joined the
mythical American group RETURN TO FOREVER IV with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke,
Lenny White and Frank Gambale for a world tour spanning on 5 continents.
Ponty received the 2007 Jazz Trophy in Germany, the medal of
Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur in France in 2009, the 2011 Lifetime
Achievement Awards in Ireland, and the Grand Prix of the Sochi Arts Festival in
2012 in Russia from the hands of world famous classical violist and orchestra
conductor Yuri Bashmet. In 2012 Ponty performed his music with Orchestre
Pasdeloup for his 50-year career celebration at the Theatre du Chatelet in
Paris, then again with symphony orchestras in Brazil, Russia and Hungary in
2012 and 2013.
In April 2013 Herbie Hancock invited him to perform in
Istanbul at “International Jazz Day” for UNESCO. Ponty also founded a new
quartet with his daughter, pianist-singer-composer Clara Ponty which performed
in France and Germany in 2014. Ponty also performed with the 89 musicians of
the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orcherstra for the Siberian Christmas Festival.
In 2014 Ponty recorded an album as an acoustic trio with
Stanley Clarke on double bass and Gypsy-French guitarist Bireli Lagrene, which
was released on Impulse/Universal in the Fall 2015.
Jean Luc recently formed the Anderson Ponty Band with Jon
Anderson, co-founder and lead singer of British progressive rock band YES, a CD
and DVD was released in 2015 followed by a North American concert tour.
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