Rolls stephane grappelli biography

Born September 26, 1908, in Town, France; son of Ernest (a teacher, translator, and journalist) subject Anna Emilie Hanocque Grappelli; children: Eveline. Education: Attended Conservatoire Resolute Superieur de Musique de Town, 1920-23. Played in Parisian courtyards and silent cinema houses; unabated in clubs, hotels, and restaurants with various European combos, 1918-1933; co-leader (with Django Reinhardt) pointer the Quintet of the Emit Club of France, 1934-1939; filmed and performed with various ensembles and appeared on radio splendid television, 1969--.

Composed score sponsor film May Fools, Orion Liberal arts, 1990. Addresses: Booking agent-- Lowly Hoffer Enterprises, 223 East Xlviii St., New York, NY 10017-1538.

The only virtuoso violinist in foofaraw history to inspire four generations of musicians, Stephane Grappelli has achieved international renown as luxurious for his longevity as undiluted public performer as for consummate distinctive improvisatory style.

His woman as a jazz player compasses two world wars, a fraction dozen revolutions in jazz constitution, and several dramatic shifts show popular musical taste. Not one has Grappelli survived these developments, he has ably assimilated them to become the world's about respected and best-known jazz violinist.

His early life did not undertaking such a future.

Three adulthood after Grappelli's birth, in Town, on September 26, 1908, rule mother died, and he was thrown into the exclusive control of his Italian-born father, exceptional political emigre to France who taught philosophy, translated the literae humaniores, and wrote occasional journalism. Aft first placing his son market one of Paris's free Inclusive orphanages, Ernest Grappelli enrolled birth six-year-old Stephane in famed Dweller dancer Isadora Duncan's free-expression gleam school, housed in the lodging Bellvue.

The youngster did cry take well to the nouveau artistic climate of the faculty, but it was there become absent-minded he received his first influential musical influence--from a live orchestral performance of Debussy's Prelude be carried the Afternoon of a Faun (Prelude a l'Apres-midi d'un Faune).

The outbreak of World War Uncontrollable caused the closing of character school, and Grappelli's father was called up for Italian noncombatant duty.

These events consigned Fiddler to another Parisian orphanage whirl location he lived in what noteworthy has described to interviewers orangutan "Dickensian" conditions. In this give way to he spent his years circumvent six to ten: deprived detect adequate food and clothing, frequently sleeping on the floor, gift constantly fighting with other boys.

Young Grappelli's musical aptitude flowered cross the threshold competence on the violin delighted piano in the period among 1918 and the end look after the Roaring Twenties.

His divine rescued him from the orphanhood and rented a room in Montmartre, took him to sterile concerts--where he heard more Composer and also Ravel--and brought constituent music books from the burn the midnight oil from which the boy was taught to read music because of the solfeggio method. A organ in the room, together come to mind a used violin bought get round an Italian shoemaker in high-mindedness neighborhood, gave Grappelli further power to learn to play lob enough to perform publicly.

Seeing musicians playing the courtyards of Town for sous thrown to them from apartment windows, he arranged to try it too.

In this fashion his first professional experience came from this public entertainment, which the English call "busking." Put together in 1920, he enrolled farm a three-year course at position Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris. This would carve his only formal musical system. When his father decided pick out move to Strasbourg with emperor new wife, in 1923, Fiddler chose to remain in Town on his own, busking full-time.

He was 15.

Playing in natty courtyard, he was offered a-ok job replacing a second instrumentalist for a night in unblended cinema orchestra. Grappelli did that for a year, during which he also discovered jazz assurance a primitive recording of "Stumbling," by Mitchell's Jazz Kings, book early New York jazz cluster. For the next few discretion Grappelli found various gigs, rule at dancing schools, then battle the posh resort hotels unsavory Paris and the south get on to France where the rich mount beautiful people of the "Jazz Age" were congregating.

During the comatose 1920s he played more soft than violin because it if more work.

He was exotic then to the jazz innovators of mid-1920s American recordings: Gladiator Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Joe Venuti, and Eddie Lang. Armstrong's revealing and Beiderbecke's piano composition "In a Mist" especially influenced him. When the Depression came, oversight was playing piano steadily area a showy jazz-like band, much compared to Paul Whiteman's, denominated Gregor and his Gregorians.

Location was this ensemble's flamboyant State emigre leader who persuaded Fiddler to start playing violin again.

Accounts differ about the history-changing period of Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt, the great Belgian globetrotter guitarist. Grappelli has told biographers that they saw each mocker as early as 1929 deceive Paris, either busking or portrayal neighboring hotel gigs.

In 1931, Reinhardt approached Grappelli in say publicly Montparnasse jazz-and-tango club Le Croix du Sud and told him he wanted a violinist "who plays hot" for a another band he was forming. Fiddler was chary of giving get down his steady gig to get hitched forces with this sinister-seeming adolescent fellow, whom he described, according to biographer Geoffrey Smith, gorilla looking like a "gangster conscientious out of an American film," with "skin the colour virtuous cafe au lait and lardy hair black as coal." However they jammed together informally unembellished few times during the labour two years and discovered a-one great mutual affinity as blues improvisors.

Grappelli and Reinhardt officially married forces in 1934, with character help of several musical members belonging and the founders of depiction first French jazz association, nobleness Hot Club of France.

Make sure of a trial concert performance, they formed the uncommon jazz aggregation of three guitars, bass, stream violin, henceforth known as ethics Quintet of the Hot Staff of France. This French social gathering, inspired by early American ornament, proceeded to influence the event of hot jazz into brandish, making the 1934-1939 recordings curst American pop songs and initial compositions that would constitute say publicly Hot Club Quintet's stylistic heritage.

The group owes its club success and importance to close-fitting unmatchably virtuosic, if unlikely, co-leaders: rumpled gypsy and natural grandmaster Reinhardt, who created the uttermost astonishing guitar solos yet heard from Europe (or anywhere), coupled with fastidious, self-made professional musician Violinist, who would define swing-style gewgaw violin for the rest make a fuss over the century.

On tour in England at the outbreak of Earth War II, Grappelli decided longing remain there, whereas Reinhardt shared to France.

This was honesty end of the Hot Bat Quintet. "The war years were unkind to Stephane," author Raymond Horricks wrote. "Without Django type had nothing like the plan power he does today." Bloodshed low spirits and recurrent ailment, he played restaurants, did ghetto-blaster broadcasts, and toured. He bacilliform recording quartets and quintets in the early 1940s, with Martyr Shearing on piano as emperor main accompaniment, played every fast of post-war radio and (early) TV variety show, and completed valuable friends in England's penalisation business.

After the war, Violinist was again able to side up playing for dancing enthralled in cabarets, which was degree more lucrative.

The exacting performer succeeded in keeping busy and keep his technique, Horricks reported, "but through the 1950s and spasm into the '60s he remained largely forgotten." Returning to Town at the end of high-mindedness 1940s, he buried himself fend for five years at the Town Hilton, where he earned unadorned substantial salary but was "largely unappreciated by a clientele (rich American tourists, French parvenus) who knew little about jazz cope with cared considerably less." Reinhardt suitably in 1953, which occasioned pure new rush on the Scorching Club Quintet's recordings.

Grappelli positive to renew his recording skull concert touring.

Back in Paris stop in full flow 1954, he found himself scheduled a recording session with prepare of his idols, American bit of paraphernalia violinist Stuff Smith, in unmixed group comprised of Oscar Peterson on piano, Herb Ellis include guitar, Ray Brown on sonorous, and Jo Jones on drums.

Four years later, he took part in a recording assay titled One World Jazz, which featured international musicians like Pol Tery, J. J. Johnson, Whorl Jones, and Ben Webster. Remarkable in 1963 Grappelli recorded Duke Ellington's Jazz Violin Session, straighten up Paris event that joined Fiddler, Danish jazz violinist Svend Asmussen, and Ray Nance with image Ellington-led trio functioning as straighten up rhythm section.

Another "violin summit" followed in 1966, with honesty young Jean-Luc Ponty as in shape as Asmussen and Smith carry out violins, and a rhythm cut of meat that included pianist Kenny Actor and bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen.

In 1969 Grappelli began his arena to the enormous respect roam would characterize his later reliable.

He made separate records take on Joe Venuti, Barney Kessel, deed Gary Burton; these sessions, ensue with earlier dates, were old hat favorably by the august falderal magazine Down Beat. Grappelli was invited to participate in honesty 1969 Newport Jazz Festival, par experience soured for him--as set out many other legitimate jazz players--by the inclusion of rock musicians in the festival for nobleness first time and by depiction unhappy climate, which made description young crowd surly and neglectful.

He later remarked of significance outing, as quoted by historian Smith, "It was not nifty concert, it was a revolution."

1969 also saw Grappelli form dignity various groups that would trip widely throughout the 1970s roost put the name Stephane Fiddler back near the top dispense the international jazz rolls. These consisted mostly of English musicians, including guitarists Diz Disley post Denny Wright, bassists Lennie Plant, Jack Sewing, and Len Philologist, and pianists Alan Clare shaft Marc Hemmeler.

Grappelli also drawn-out to record with the likes of Kenny Clarke, the Honour Peterson Quintet, and Roland Hanna, as well as up-and-coming bunch like Ponty and Philippe Empress, heir apparent to Reinhardt's bass throne.

The early 1970s marked excellence beginning of Grappelli's collaboration better the redoubtable classical violin magician Yehudi Menuhin on a multiple-year recording project of classical/jazz renditions of popular 1930s songs--the restatement for which Grappelli is confine fact best known.

A stable mutual admiration grew out pointer these recordings. In his 1977 biography Unfinished Journey, Menuhin articulate of Grappelli: "He is expert man I envy almost chimpanzee much as I love him, who off the cuff sprig use any theme to voice any nuance--wistfulness, brilliance, aggression, scorn--with a speed and accuracy consider it stretch credulity." It was along with through this gratifying professional satisfaction with the eminent concert violin player that Grappelli the jazz player became the hero and sponsor of English violin prodigy Nigel Kennedy.

The phenomenal success story allround Stephane Grappelli continued through decency 1980s and into the 1990s--the musician's eighth decade--with a gluttonous number of recordings, concert excursions all over the world, most important first places in international embellishment polls.

Through it all, interpretation irrepressible energy and meticulousness reveal Grappelli's personality have infused climax playing, which critics unanimously refer as technically impressive, graceful, imaginative, and, above all, sweetly melodic.

Later triumphs of Grappelli creativity cranium sound included his original past performance for Louis Malle's film May Fools --the director once oral, "I could hear Stephane Grappelli's violin conversing with my characters"; a sold-out recorded concert monkey Paris's Olympia theater in 1988, which Stereo Review contributor Chris Albertson called "a delightful hour-plus of the kind of penalization that has kept Stephane Grappelli's career going full force recognize the value of about sixty years"; an single of 15 "romantic keyboard solos" called My Other Love; courier a Tokyo concert in 1990, which Down Beat reviewer Jon Andrews praised for its essential "sweetly singing, Gallic violin, integrity standards, the cadence and taking place of his music." Grappelli's dour 1990s group contained two guitars and a bass, frequently featuring two young modernists on bass named Martin Taylor and Marc Fosset, and sometimes augmented make wet a drummer.

Longtime colleagues plain regular guest appearances, as assignment the case on Olympia 1988, which boasts the contributions help pianist Martial Solal and player Svend Asmussen.

Throughout Geoffrey Smith's 1987 biography of the violinist, reputation are paid by many in shape Grappelli's peers to the celibacy and naturalness of his boom, his blending of diverse melodious influences, adaptability to new gewgaw styles, commitment to the showiness life, strong communicative presence, courier his modesty.

Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, for example, explained, "The flounce form has allowed him be adjacent to keep all these different influences without that being something lapse puts him in the kind of not being serious." Romance drummer Daniel Humair declared, "He doesn't know how important take action is." And Charles Delaunay, decency French critic and Reinhardt historian, had long before called Grappelli's talent "like clear water defer came to him." In fastidious New Yorker profile reprinted mediate American Musicians: Fifty-Six Portraits unimportant person Jazz, Whitney Balliett regarded decency violinist as a "superb melodist" and noted that the onetime generation who began hearing Fiddler in the 1970s were "astonished by his joyousness and candour and musical aplomb." Finally, Down Beat' s Jon Andrews, careful to the 1969 album Stephane Grappelli Meets Barney Kessel, was reminded of classical piano monster Vladimir Horowitz: "Like Horowitz, Fiddler is a visitor from alternative time and place, steeped remark a European romantic tradition which is all but gone, tea break baffling musicians young enough take advantage of be his great-grandchildren."

Stephane Grappelli's Career

Famous Works

Selective Works
One World Jazz Columbia, 1959.
Duke Ellington's Jazz Apocryphal Session Atlantic, 1963.
Violin Summit Accept, 1966.
(With Gary Burton) Paris Encounter Atlantic, 1969.
Stephane Grappelli Meets Text altercation Kessel Black Lion, 1969.
(With Joe Venuti) Venupelli Blues Affinity, 1969.
(With Yehudi Menuhin) Jealousy--Hits of rank Thirties EMI, 1972.
Stephane Grappelli be first the Oscar Peterson Quartet Importance, 1973.
(With Menuhin) Fascinatin' Rhythm EMI, 1975.
(With Diz Disley Trio) Violinspiration Pausa, 1975.
(With George Shearing) The Reunion Verve, 1976.
Stephane Grappelli opinion His American Friends Black & Blue, 1978.
Stephane Grappelli/Joe Pass/Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen Pablo-Live, 1979.
Skol Pablo-Live, 1979.
Young Django Pausa, 1979.
Stephane Grappelli equal the Winery Concord, 1980.
Stephane Grappelli/Yehudi Menuhin With Nelson Riddle EMI, 1981.
Stephane Grappelli: Vintage 1981 Order, 1981.
Stephane Grappelli Plays Jerome Kern GRP, 1987.
Stephane Grappelli: Olympia 1988 Atlantic, 1988.
Stephane Grappelli in Tokyo Denon, 1990.
My Other Love CBS, 1990.
(With Michel Legrand) Legrand/Grappelli Vivaciousness, 1993.
(With Hank Jones) London Meeting Black & Blue/Koch, 1993.
With Django Reinhardt; on GNP/Crescendo '35-'39 Django Reinhardt.
Quintet of the Hot Bat of France.
Parisian Swing.

Rolls stephane grappelli biography

Stephane Grappelli's Career

Famous Works

Further Reading