Our last night at the Vienne Festival featured one of my all time favourite musicians - Jean luc Ponty. The Fusion violinist produced a series of stunning fusion albums in the late 70's early 80's which fitted in with the McLaughlin, Return to Forever school of Jazz Rock.
I have seen him a few times in other projects but never in his own right with his own band and here on our last night I was not disappointed. Playing material from those earlier albums (Enigmatic Oceans, Aurora)Ponty showed (along with a terrific band) why he was the number one fusion Violinist at the time.
The second half of the show featured a tribute to Frank Zappa played by the Orchestra Basse Normadie - I'm a serious long time Zappa Fan and this double bill was high on my list of 'one of the great concerts' however sadly the choice of music played by the Orchestra was not what I had hoped for and although they played excellently the only two tunes that I could recognise in their entirety were 'Inca Roads' and 'Peaches en regalia' - It did get a lot better when Ponty joined in and added his unique touch but sadly for me a little lacking in the big Zappa blockbusters
No comments:
Post a Comment