The Musical Box

the deadstring brothers perform saturday at the green lantern.

The Green Lantern kicks the weekend into gear tonight with the return of the Cincinnati cowpunk brigade 500 Miles to Memphis. The band rocks heartily with guitar crunch, country commiseration and hook-happy tunes from its 2007 album Sunshine in a Shot Glass.

This is supposedly 500 Miles’ last show of the year. Of course, its website claimed a Friday the 13^th bash at the Southgate House in Newport was going to close out road work for 2009. Regardless, you won’t have 500 Miles to kick around after this weekend. The band plans to get busy this winter on a new album with eyes toward a February release.

The very fine West Virginia string band The Fox Hunt will open tonight’s show

The club follows up on Saturday with The Deadstring Brothers, a band that poses this intriguing rock ‘n’ roll query: What if the Rolling Stones, especially as they existed in their honky tonk glory of the early ‘70s, hailed from Detroit in instead of England?

Certainly there is a passing shade of Mick Jagger in the singing of Kurt Marschke - although it is mostly a reflection of Jagger during the roots rebellion days of Exile on Main St. Those accents, along with an occasional nod to Faces-style looseness, fuel such Deadstring albums as 2007’s Silver Mountain. But expect boozy country blues to also abound on tunes the Brothers are bound to play Saturday from the forthcoming Sao Paulo record, which is due out on Chicago’s famed Bloodshot label in February.

Opening on Saturday will be fellow Motor City country stylists Whitey Morgan and the 78s. Morgan’s crew, however, seem to steer closer to the traditional. Its cover of Bruce Springtsteen’s I’m on Fire sounds like pre-outlaw era Waylon Jennings in a heady Western mood.

500 Miles to Memphis performs at 10 tonight; The Deadstring Brothers perform at 10 Saturday. Both performances will be at The Green Lantern, 497 Third St. Cover charge each night is $5. Call  (859) 252-9539.

On one team we have Dave Rawlings, longtime performance mate of Americana idol Gillian Welch who now leads his own project with Welch reverting to the support role. On the other is Rosie Flores, the long proclaimed “rockabilly filly” who returns after a few years as a thoroughly independent act to team with punk vet and alt-country maestro Jon Langford - producer, co-writer, duet partner and even cover artist for her newest album.

dave rawlings machine: a friend of a friend

For Rawlings and Welch, the new A Friend of a Friend employs the relaxed folk settings of their concerts as a springboard in terms of performance attitude and repertoire. Initially, the Dave Rawlings Machine was designed as a cover band project that worked in a few original tunes penned for other artists with  instrumental fortification from members of the renegade string band Old Crow Medicine Show.

As such, A Friend of a Friend resurrects a near decade-old tune - To Be Young (is to be Sad, is to be High) - Rawlings co-wrote with Ryan Adams. This version is more of a hoedown with all of the Crow Show in tow. Curiously the song’s modestly wistful melody also reveals a slightly Dylan-esque cast.

From the covers corner comes a 10 minute medley of Conor Oberst’s Method Acting and an elegiac reading of Neil Young’s Cortez the Killer performed only with Welch.                               

Rounding out the record’s stylistic breadth is Bells of Harlem, one of several newer Rawlings/Welch tunes that again recalls Dylan, but in his more ambient, Time Out of Mind-era guise.

rosie flores: girl of the century

Girl of the Century benefits from Langford’s pub-style demeanor. But his Pine Valley Cosmonauts largely stay out of the way of Flores’ rootsy intimacy. Sure, rockabilly still figures into the fun, especially in the effervescent update of This Little Girl’s Gone Rockin’, a 1956 Bobby Darin-penned hit for Ruth Brown, and a raucous, riff-heavy This Cat’s in the Doghouse.

But the album shines just as generously as a vintage country affair, whether it’s through the 1969 Ernest Tubb/Loretta Lynn hit Who’s Gonna Take Your Garbage Out? with Langford adding a touch of Welsh vitriol to the flames or the fiddle driven swing of a recent Paul Burch serenade, Little Bells.

The outside inspirations are no match for Girl of the Century’s Flores-penned title tune, though. It’s a torchy work of dark folk reflection and border town strings bolstered by a voice that booms clear to the next century and back again.

james falzone of klang. photo by jeff meacham.

Judging by its fine two-set performance last night at Al’s Bar, the Chicago quartet Klang seemed quite content to be a conduit between worlds of jazz tradition and new frontiers of free improvisation.

Led by clarinetist James Falzone, Klang played from a number of stylistic bases. Some celebrated swing, but not always the standardized tempos associated with it. The opening G.F.O.P., for instance, let swing and blues accents accelerate, fracture and unite for some impressively rugged harmonic passages.

Other compositions - many of which were pulled from Klang’s indie debut album, Tea Music - made ample use of Falzone’s accomplices. For Still Life, drummer Tim Daisy played hushed rumbles with mallets before offering an arsenal of percussive shots on small gongs and cymbals, all of which created a merry klang indeed.

But it was the way clarinet mingled with the vibraphone work of Jason Adasiewicz that seemed to open the most stylistic doors. During Lament on Ash Wednesday, the mood was cool but restless with Adasiewicz playing the vibes not with mallets but with a bow. The resulting sound - thin but eerie - equally played off the bowed bass work of Jason Roebke. But on Memories Of You, modeled on Benny Goodman’s version of the Eubie Blake tune, the vibes emitted a rich, lyrical glow.

It’s perhaps an easy and obvious reference, but it was hard not to hear the inspiration of vibes great Gary Burton in Adasiewicz’s playing, from his sometimes deeply percussive attack to the way he appropriated attractive shades of blues into his playing during the original tune I Hope She is Awake.

Goodman and another clarinet giant, Jimmy Giuffre, were compositional models for the performance, as shown by the band’s deft mix of blues cool and improvisational bursts during a version of Giuffre’s Me Too. But as the second of two sets progressed, free improvisation gained more ground, whether it was in the Zappa-like animation of #32 Busonius or the jagged rhythmic turns, and the wonderful moments of quiet they often paved the way for, on China Black.

The evening’s only sore spot was the bar chatter at Al’s. It was light enough to be dismissed during the first set. But in the second, the idle, uninvolved bar speak became very intrusive. Al’s is an intimate setting. Voices carry. On some beer soaked Saturday with indie rock in the spotlight, it wouldn’t matter. On a rainy Tuesday where a small but attentive audience was soaking in all it could from Klang, such empty chatter was a rude and distracting annoyance.

matisyahu.

Let’s face it folks, finding a spiritual, much less a musical, link between Brooklyn and Jerusalem on a Monday night in Lexington is one serious trick. Yet that was the sort of bridge that Hasidic reggae-rap star Matisyahu constructed last night at Buster’s.

Admittedly, to the much of the pop world, Matisyahu’s music is all about groove. And last night there was plenty of it thanks to a five member band that pumped up plump reggae and dub fabrics as a backdrop for Matisyahu’s vocals.

There were unquestionably hip hop references, as well. But the rhythms were saturated far more in reggae while the overall musical framework frequently shifted into jam band mode - as shown by an enticing instrumental workout that prefaced Ancient Lullaby. With the music, not the lyrics in the driver’s seat, Matisyahu, with Hasidic locks dangling from under a black yarmulke, simply bounced about the stage, enjoying the dense patterns of keyboards and guitars as much as his audience.

There were a few concessions to mainstream rap, such as freestyle rhymes and beat box jams mid way through the performance that were very pedestrian given the more overtly spiritual plains attained during King Without a Crown, One Day and Lord Raise Me Up.

In fact, the truly moving affirmations didn’t revolve around lyrics or reggae-fied narratives at all. When the band’s rhythms morphed into a fetching psychedelic blur, Matisyahu let loose with a wordless high tenor wail that was heavily accentuated by reverb. When that mix was allowed to reach a boil, it didn’t matter what particular faith or spiritual plain one embraced. The music’s rich ambience and obvious devotional dedication was now open to everyone.

klang: jason adasiewicz, tim daisy, james falzone and jason roebke. photo by david sampson.

Who would you expect from a band called Klang?

A percussion ensemble? A bell ringers’ society? Personally, if faced with a blindfold test, the first image that would pop in my mind would be of Brian Johnson swinging from an enormous chime whenever AC/DC plays Hell’s Bells onstage. Now, that’s a klang for you.

No, the Klang heading to Lexington this week offers a cheerier though more challenging sound than any of those choices. The latest in a string of indie Chicago jazz ensembles to flow through town courtesy of the Outside the Spotlight Series, Klang is traditional in its makeup (a quartet built around the swing-savvy blend of clarinet and vibraphone) as well as in its repertoire (music inspired by Jimmy Giuffre and Benny Goodman). But expectations pretty well end there.

“A lot of my work tends to be outside of jazz,” said clarinetist James Falzone, who formed Klang in 2006. “It is influenced by jazz, but my music is also inspired by different world genres. Klang was a chance to go with a straight up jazz group. I mean, vibes and clarinet are one of the classic combinations in swing music and post bop jazz.”

Among the initial inspirations behind Klang was saxophonist/clarinetist Giuffre, a ‘40s and ‘50s era arranger for Woody Herman. Giuffre’s trio ensembles of the ‘50s and ‘60s made pioneering use of percussion when it made it use of it all. Many of his percussion-less groups also explored areas of free improvisation with an emphasis on quieter compositional colors that many critics have compared to chamber music.

“I was writing a lot of tunes for this group that explored what I call Giuffre-isms,” Falzone said. “I didn’t want Klang to be a tribute band. But the tunes took on things I associate with Giuffre’s work while at the same time serving as my own statements.

“One of the things Giuffre captured was this sense of space in his music by changing the role of the drummer in the ensemble. He wrote a lot of tunes where the drummer would not be the timekeeper, but a member of the counterpoint. There is a piece on our record (the independently issued Tea Music) called No Milk where drums never actually play with the rest of the ensemble. They just sort of play within the cracks.

“Of course, you need to have a sympathetic drummer for that.”

Luckily, Klang has one of the best. Playing drums and percussion in Klang is Tim Daisy, who has performed with numerous ensembles in Outside the Spotlight concerts here over the past seven years, the most prominent being The Vandermark 5. Bassist Jason Roebke (another OTS regular) and vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz complete the Klang lineup.

But the Giuffre inspiration represents only one area of influence for the band. The music of swing king Goodman - not coincidentally, a Chicago native - is also a guiding but somewhat unexpected force. Since the completion of Tea Music, Falzone has arranged - and, in some instances, written original works based on - Goodman’s small group compositions, especially 1939-41 sextet pieces featuring guitarist Charlie Christian.

“What I love about that music is the concentration on improvisation,” Falzone said. “That was really exciting stuff. You hear it Goodman’s trios, quartets and all of his larger small groups. We will probably be recording some of the Goodman material that I put together soon.

“It’s funny, though. A lot of clarinetists never touch Goodman because of how sacred that music is considered to be.”

While Goodman’s presence might not be obvious on Tea Music, some especially playful views of swing are. On Daisy’s Fickle, a brisk and decidedly cool groove struts before stopping dead in its tracks with punctuated, blues-like jabs. The groove then resumes before deflating entirely into improvisatory flourishes.

Later, on Falzone’s China Black, a loping clarinet melody has the aloofness of a Thelonious Monk tune. But it soon fades into squeals, percussive skirmishes and open-ended improvisation.

“Klang is still a slightly more accessible project than other improvisational groups here in Chicago,” Falzone said. “In a way, that’s largely because of the clarinet, which is a softer, somewhat more un-affronting instrument. Certainly, it can peel the paint off the walls when I’m screeching. But by and large, it’s a mellower instrument.

“Also, even when we’re exploring in our improvisations, I think people really respond to the energy and sense of community between the musicians. When we’re improvising in a freer or more open space, there is such a simpatico between the members of the ensemble. We’re listening to each other, we’re responding to each other and we’re, quite literally, engaged in a conversation.

“And I think that is when musicians are really at their best.”   

Klang performs at 8:30 tonight at Al’s Bar, 6^th and Limestome. Admission is $5. Call  (859) 309-2901.

matisyahu performs tonight at buster's.

On the cover of his third and newest studio album Light, we see a sunwashed photo of Matisyahu looking nothing short of tranquil.

Gone is the black suit and wide-brimmed hat - traditional garb of the Hasidic Jewish faith he long ago adopted but still very much embraces. But a full five years have passed since Matisyahu was introduced as an almost impossible pop creation - a Hasid who rapped about life and faith over dancehall reggae and dub grooves. Back then, it was difficult to view the young artist as anything other than a novelty. But in 2009, the look and the sound of Matisyahu have become more, well, enlightened.

“What I do is the result of a process, an organic process, which is reflective of what, I think, most musicians and artists go through when they are creating any type of work,” Matisyahu said in a recent phone interview.

“For me, Light is really a reflection of life experience, of life process and all that comes along with that - artistically, musically, spiritually. It’s about all of these different aspects. It’s a full on expression, an immersion of self.”

The album is also something of a sonic and stylistic expansion. Fans that simply go for the groove in Matisyahu’s music will find a deeper pool to wade through on Light. The dub-style accents become more rugged and expansive on For You while Darkness Into Light shifts percolating rhymes that race by with the speed of a Manhattan cab ride into a groove saturated with guitar crunch.

The biggest departure, perhaps, is the album closing Silence, an affirming but sobering meditation surrounded not by dancehall beats but by the acoustic guitar ambience of Trevor Hall, who will share the concert bill when Matisyahu makes his Lexington debut tonight at Buster’s.

“These styles, these sounds, come from the musical inspiration leading up to the record,” Matisyahu said. “The inspiration is what you feed off of, it’s what I was influenced by as a teenager who was developing and wanting to be a singer, a rapper, whatever you want to call it. More importantly, that inspiration was about finding my place in it all, about finding different ways to express yourself and not limiting yourself to just one thing.”

Early inspirations for the West Pennsylvania youth born Matthew Miller were the forefathers of two jam generations - Bob Marley and Phish.

“Early on, the first Phish concert I went to when I was 16 years old had a major effect on me. It was the first time I ate LSD. It was a completely immersive experience - just the typical stuff you hear of in terms of experiencing life on a whole new plain of existence.

“But Bob Marley was really a leader for me. His music directed me to the path of wanting to discover my own spiritual tradition, my own heritage and the need to draw upon that.”

Reconciliation and eventually acceptance of a traditional Jewish upbringing went almost hand in hand with a Deadhead like existence spent following Phish on the road. Interests in reggae and rap began to flourish just before joining the Carlebach Shul, a Manhattan synagogue where music was encouraged. When studies led to him to the Lubavitch Hasidic sect, Matthew Miller became Matisyahu.

“So I began performing my music in the Jewish world,” he said. “For example, I would get up at a table, do a rap and a rabbi would hear it and invite to play at his Hanukkah party within the community. So there was definitely a certain amount of support I received that served to sort of springboard my career.

“I’m sure there were probably lots of people… well, I’m certain there were lots of people… that were not supportive. But I never paid much attention to that.”

A debut Matisyahu album, Shake Off the Dust… Arise was released in 1994. But it was the subsequent concert recording Live at Stubb’s that introduced the world to the serious dancehall energy of tunes like King Without a Crown and Chop ‘Em Down.

The songs and performances were still fueled by faith. But the album’s recording locale underscored just how far reaching Matisyahu’s appeal had become. After all, Stubb’s wasn’t a synagogue, but a famed Austin, Tx. barbeque and beer joint.

“It felt great,” Matisyahu said of the acceptance brought on by Live at Stubb’s. “This was my dream. So, obviously, it was an amazing feeling. I had personally gone through this process of becoming religious prior to that and gave up a lot. I was taking a chance by jumping into a new lifestyle by kind of divorcing myself from mainstream culture. And I was doing it all with the belief that if I would make these sacrifices and if I would, in a sense, dedicate myself to God, then God would help me make my dreams come true.

“So it was sort of full circle for me. I felt very blessed. And I still feel very blessed to be able to make music.”

Matisyahu and Trevor Hall perform at 9 tonight at Buster’s Billiards and Backroom, 899 Manchester St. Tickets are $25. Call (859) 368-8871.

jean-luc ponty.

It was easy last night at the Singletary Center for the Arts to overlook the technical and instinctual command within Jean-Luc Ponty’s musicianship when compositions were presented as such accessible, melodic delicacies.

But there instances - several of them, in fact - where the landmark French violinist briefly climbed on board the ostinato express to dish out a few dizzying runs on the strings. That at least reminded the audience of exactly the sort of unassuming musical force it was dealing with.

When compared to the mighty fusion music Ponty was known for the late ‘70s and ‘80s, the performance seemed almost delicate. There were no synthesizers and sequencers, just a grand piano and Kurtsweil keyboard at the hands of longtime Ponty bandmate William Lecomte. There were no MIDI systems or echo effects to alter the violin’s natural voice and, as has been the case with Ponty’s bands for the past decade, no guitars.

So with the extra weight gone, the 1 ¾ hour performance flew by with an often effortless lyrical grace. Older, more anthemic and sometimes darker works like Cosmic Messenger, The Struggle of the Turtle to the Sea and especially the show opening Demagomania bore unexpectedly warm but still highly electric casts while newer pieces like On My Way To Bombay and the encore selection To and Fro revealed a pop friendly bounce.

Even tunes that called for the most musical might often sounded playful at the core, as in a medley that matched the 2007 composition Celtic Steps with the 1982 piece it was adapted from, Jig. Here, Ponty’s playing was suitably spry but also open enough to give bassist Baron Browne room to beef up the folky groove.

As fun as all this electricity was, the performance’s highlights came when Ponty largely cut himself loose from amplification. With Lecomte on piano, the violinist performed an almost shy sounding ballad called Last Memories of Her that possessed chamber style finesse.

But the killer was the unaccompanied violin melody of 1983’s Nostalgia and 2007’s Desert Crossing. The former, a tune first recorded with a massively computerized keyboard arrangement, revealed attractive ostinatos in this solo acoustic setting that shot into warp speed on the latter work. From a technical standpoint, this was a stunner - a medley with a temperament that seemed ready to implode before Ponty brought the whole daredevil act to a conclusion with a brief swing flourish.

The bluegrass flavored New Country - a signature tune for Ponty, although he seldom plays it anymore - was served as a finale. Maybe the lure of playing bluegrass fusion in the Bluegrass (this was, after all, Ponty’s Lexington debut) explained why he dusted off the song. No matter. It was a suitable coda for a program that nicely balanced instrumental muscle, stylistic cunning and a simple sense of musical good spirits.

velvet elvis: scott stoess, dan trisko, sherri mcgee and jeff yurkowski. photo by herald-leader staff photographer mark cornelison.

It was, in short, Dan Trisko’s turn. Each time Velvet Elvis reunited, it was for a benefit to be determined by one of its four principal members.

“When we had our first reunion in 1998, we said, ‘Everybody gets one turn at this,’” Trisko said. “And I had never taken a turn.”

So the latest reassembly of the storied Lexington rock band that briefly flirted with national prominence in the late ‘80s was organized as a family affair. The beneficiary will be Trisko’s sister-in-law, West Coast visual artist Sue Trisko, who has been undergoing radiation and chemotherapy treatments after being diagnosed with lung cancer last May.

“When I heard about her I thought this is the most obvious thing to do,” Trisko said. “She is married to my hippie renegade brother who quit high school, went out to California and got a record deal. He caused such an uproar in the family over the choices he made that I thought, ‘Boy, I better not do that.’”

But the younger Trisko did do that, although he signed a record contract 20 years later without leaving home. After establishing a solid regional fan base with a pair of independent recordings, Velvet Elvis - guitarist Trisko, drummer Sherri McGee, keyboardist Jeff Yurkowski and bassist Scott Stoess - teamed with producer Mitch Easter (of the band Let’s  Active and co-producer of, among other projects, R.E.M.’s Murmur and Reckoning albums) and signed with Enigma Records.

In 1988 came a self-titled album and concert bills with national acts big (UB40) and small (The Bears). Though critically well-received, the national buzz was brief. McGee left in the summer of 1989. The band folded officially in late 1990.

“When people ask me, ‘Why didn’t Velvet Elvis succeed?’ I say, ‘We didn’t catch the wave.’”

Velvet Elvis’ Saturday reunion/benefit at Cosmic Charlie’s, its first in over six years, will also mark the one-night-only re-teaming of four other Lexington bands - Two Small Bodies, Rebel Without a Cause, VelJetta and No Excuse. Their members make up the majority of the local music community as it existed two decades ago.

 ”I was embarrassed to even ask these other bands,” Trisko said. “Seriously. ‘Hey would you do this for free as a favor for me and my sister-in-law who you don’t even know?’ And everyone just instantly said yes. It was great. There wasn’t even hesitation.

“I think it’s incredibly generous for everyone to help out on this.”

Velvet Elvis performs at 9:30 tonight at Cosmic Charlie’s, 388 Woodland Ave. Admission is $10. Call (859) 309-9499.

jean-luc ponty.

It would seem almost demeaning to refer to the career of perhaps the most influential jazz violinist of his generation as accidental. But the word the landmark French instrumentalist continually uses to describe the musical paths he has followed for over 45 years is “unplanned.”

His switch from a classically reared youth to an adulthood of jazz? That wasn’t in the cards. The adventures in amplifying music for rock-like settings on a string of top selling albums for Atlantic Records in the ‘70s and ‘80s? Ponty didn’t see that coming, either. A collaborative project with East African musicians and an eventual return to acoustic jazz once his electric popularity was established? Who would have thought?

Such avenues, it turns out, have simply been part of a creative drive that has long fueled the recording and performance careers of Ponty, who performs his first-ever Lexington concert on Saturday at the Singletary Center for the Arts.

“That’s the excitement of being able to create,” Ponty, 67, said in an early morning phone interview recently from Paris.  “From the time I got a recording contract with Atlantic in 1975 and was really able to put my composing skills to work, I have considered myself first a bandleader/composer using myself and my violin abilities as simply voices in the band. It was never about putting me in front of the band. Being a voice in that sound was always more important.”

+ + + + + +

The classical youth: Born in Avranches, France, Ponty graduated at age 17 from the esteemed Conservatorie National Superieur de Musique de Paris with its highest honors before joining the equally championed Parisian symphony, Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux.

“My dream was to become a classical conductor. But I discovered jazz - bebop, specifically - in the early ‘60s in Paris. People there showed such a passion for this music that I eventually left classical music to become a jazz musician. So, already, one of the first steps in my career was unplanned.”

Initially, though, Ponty didn’t approach jazz through the violin, but by playing clarinet. He was taught to play the instrument by his father while Ponty’s mother instructed him on piano.

“There was a band of non professional musicians at a university in Paris that played in a swing style like Benny Goodman. It played at parties there at the university and began looking for a clarinetist. I knew nothing about jazz at that point. I had heard of Louis Armstrong and New Orleans music, but that was all. But they hired me because I could improvise immediately at the audition.

“They said, ‘OK. You know nothing about jazz, but you have a good ear. So we will hire you.’ And they taught me all of the jazz standards of the time. They taught me to shut up when the other guy was soloing and wait for my turn. That’s when I started buying records and discovering how jazz has evolved since Benny Goodman. I discovered Miles Davis and John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk

“That’s how everything started.”

+ + + + + +

In Grappelli’s footsteps: France already had claim to the previous generation’s greatest jazz violinist, Stephane Grappelli. But by the mid ‘60s, Grappelli’s career had quieted. Realizing that a more defining musical voice awaited him on violin than clarinet, Ponty switched to strings.

“It came to his Stephane’s ears that there was the crazy young violinist jamming in clubs and playing what was then modern jazz. So he was intrigued.”

Ponty and Grappelli played and recorded together sporadically in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. But as Ponty’s own jazz voice evolved, so did the need for amplification. Once electricity for his music was discovered, attention came pouring in from outside of jazz circles.

In quick succession came an alliance with composer/guitarist Frank Zappa, a guest role on one of Elton John’s finest albums (1972’s Honky Chateau), a violin chair in John McLaughlin’s second Mahavishnu Orchestra and a move from Paris to Los Angeles.

Lexington violinist Zach Brock, who now lives and works in New York, performs with, among other ensembles, a Mahavishnu tribute band aptly titled the Mahavishnu Project. The group has several times performed, in its entirety, the 1975 Mahavishnu/Ponty album Visions of the Emerald Beyond.

“That gave me a chance to play Jean-Luc’s awesome, unbelievable baritone intro on violin with wah-wah pedal for the first tune (Eternity’s Breath),” Brock said. “It’s one of the scariest things ever played.

“Jean-Luc is simply the living legend, the pioneer king of jazz violin. Period. So many things on the violin would have just never happened if it wasn’t for the path he was forging.”

+ + + + + +

Atlantic, Africa and beyond: With the release of 1975’s Upon the Wings of Music, Ponty began a string of albums for the Atlantic label that would come to define his journeys into amplified fusion music. Some efforts were densely layered, rock-ish recordings (1978’s Cosmic Messenger). Others were largely one man band works with computerized synthesizer arrangements serving as backdrops for the still organic sound of Ponty’s violin melodies (1983’s Open Mind). And, in one sublime case, an album (1976’s Imaginary Voyage) yielded a hoedown-like hit called New Country. In recent decades, new generation string stylists Mark O’ Connor and Bowling Green native/Kentucky Music Hall of Fame inductee Sam Bush have cut their own versions of New Country. Bush’s 2006 recording even featured Ponty as a guest instrumentalist.

“I just think Jean-Luc is the most influential jazz-rock violin player ever,” Bush said following a taping of the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour earlier this week where he performed New Country. “He’s a generous guy, a wonderful musician. His timing is beautiful. His intonation is great. I have only good things to say about Jean-Luc.”

“Even though I had more musical adventures after the Atlantic albums, they still form the base of who I am as a composer” Ponty said. “I had gone though all these experiences of classical music, jazz and progressive rock. So I wanted to create my own music where I could incorporate all these elements. On these albums, I felt like someone who travels musically.

“Then I moved on to that project with the East African musicians (1992’s Tchokola, cut after Ponty jumped labels from Atlantic to Epic) and the Rite of Strings (an acoustic trio featuring fellow fusion stars Stanley Clarke and Al DiMeola which released a self-titled album in 1995). These projects kept me alert as a musician.”

Ponty’s most recent recording, The Acatama Experience, finds him playing largely acoustically. But his current touring band - a streamlined ensemble featuring keyboardist William Lecomte,  drummer Damien Schmitt (both from France) and bassist Baron Browne (a Georgia native) - is versed in Ponty compositions dating back to his 1977 album Enigmatic Ocean.

“I can only be thankful for this musical life I’ve had,” Ponty said. “It went beyond what I could have hoped for.

“You know, I really didn’t expect to have this much fun.”

Jean-Luc Ponty and His Band perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Tickets are $25, $28 and $32. Call (859) 257-4929.

In anticipation of Saturday’s performance by Jean-Luc Ponty at the Singletary Center for for the Arts, as well as a preface to a detailed interview we will feature here on Friday that was conducted recently with the jazz violin giant by phone from Paris, we offer this primer. Here we have, in chronological order, 10 albums spanning 40 years that detail the emotive depth, stylistic invention and sheer fun that make up the music of Jean-Luc Ponty.

+ Sunday Walk (1967) - Though not officially his debut recording, this expressive quartet session was widely viewed as Ponty’s international introduction. The band included pianist Wolfgang Dauner, who still performs duo concerts with Ponty.

+ King Kong (1969) - A wonderfully animated record devoted almost exclusively to the compositions of Frank Zappa that shifts from the wistful quartet reading of Idiot Bastard Son to the 20 minute Music for Electric Violin and Low Budget Orchestra.

+ New Violin Summit (1971) - A long out-of-print concert recording that lands Ponty squarely in fusion territory. Having Dauner, guitarist Terje Rypdal and prog rock hero Robert Wyatt on drums as a rhythm section enhances the electric spirit.

+ Visions of the Emerald Beynold (1975) - The final Mahavishnu Orchestra collaboration featuring Ponty and guitarist John McLaughlin. Hearing the two musically butt heads on Eternity’s Breath, Part 2 remains a beautifully fearsome experience.

+ Imaginary Voyage (1976) - A watershed fusion recording, Imaginary Voyage sported expansive compositions (the four part title tune), a solo violin work drenched in echo effects (Wandering on the Milky Way) and even a bluegrass/bop hit (New Country).

+ Cosmic Messenger (1978) - Arguably the finest and most popular of Ponty’s Atlantic albums, Cosmic Messenger was a tighter but denser exercise with layers of keyboards and guitars augmenting Ponty’s increasingly otherworldly violin sound.

+ Individual Choice (1983) - The first of two largely unaccompanied albums where Ponty created compositions dominated as much by synthesizers as violin. Among the very few guests: bass guitarist and future American Idol judge Randy Jackson.

+ Tchokola (1991) - A career changing album that unplugged Ponty from computers and sequencers in favor of grooves from Senegal, Cameroon and Nigeria. The album’s heavily West African cast is still reflected in Ponty’s live performances today.

+ The Rite of Strings (1995) - A summit featuring three of fusion music’s foremost celebs (Ponty, bassist Stanley Clarke and guitarist Al DiMeola) playing in an entirely acoustic setting. A 1975 Ponty fusion classic, Renaissance, becomes a perfect fit for the sessions.

+ The Acatama Experience (2007) - While guitar pals Allan Holdsworth and Philip Catherine make cameos, Acatama de-emphasizes guitar and electric playing for a gentler but no less absorbing sound. The unplugged solo piece Desert Crossing is a mind-blower.

Jean-Luc Ponty and His Band perform at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 14 at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Tickets: $25, $28 and $32. Call (859) 257-4929.