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Passing the torch
Mark O'Connor plays a tribute to his late mentor, violinist Stephane Grappelli.
By PHILIP BOOTH
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 9, 2000
[Publicity photo]
Mark O'Connor has played with stars of country and bluegrass, classical and pop.
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Legendary French violinist Stephane Grappelli graced the stage of the Clearwater Jazz Holiday in 1996, little more than a year before his death at age 89.
Concert-goers, hushed and enchanted by the performance, praised the sweetness of the tone Grappelli elicited from his instrument, his dexterity and the giddy feeling of momentum expressed by his trio, with bassist Jon Burr and Bucky Pizzarelli.
Other, more experienced ears, though, hear an entire universe of sound when they tune in to the music of Grappelli.
"I don't know if one sees it the same way as the next person," says Mark O'Connor, the versatile fiddler and one-time Grappelli sideman (on guitar) now touring the country with a tribute to his former mentor. The tour stops Friday at the Mahaffey Theater.
"I hear that tugboat, dragging along and picking up things that he passed through in his life. I hear the French art songs. I can hear early swing. I hear Art Tatum.
"I hear the amazing musical impressionist era of his younger years," says O'Connor, speaking by telephone from the San Diego home he shares with his wife and two children. "And I can hear tango. I can hear classical. I hear silent movies. When you really hear and dissect someone like that, you hear many things. And it culminates as one."
O'Connor, raised in Seattle and San Francisco, at 13 was an accomplished classical guitarist -- and recent convert to folk and jazz fiddling, courtesy of a television appearance by "ragin' Cajun" Doug Kershaw -- when he first caught a performance by Grappelli.
The latter, at the time, had recently begun a comeback on American stages. Grappelli, whose playing helped establish a place for the violin in jazz, made his name in the '30s, co-leading the Quintet of the Hot Club of France with gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt.
Over the years, he reunited with Reinhardt and played with a long list of major jazz artists, including Duke Ellington, saxophonists Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins, vibraphonist Gary Burton, drummer Louis Bellson, saxophonist Phil Woods, pianists McCoy Tyner and Hank Jones, violinists Joe Venuti and Jean Luc Ponty, guitarists Pizzarelli and Larry Coryell, and bassist Charlie Haden.
"One of the things that attracted me to him was that he had such a singular voice," O'Connor, 39, recounts. "He sounded like no other violinist. He basically took it to the world. He became one of the most beloved violinists of his time.
"I think probably one of the biggest lessons I was able to get from him was his ability to communicate with audiences through his instrument. So many musicians would love to have that skill, but most don't get past the first few layers. Grappelli was just one of those rare people that completely got inside of you."
O'Connor was 17 when he auditioned for Grappelli, and the two shared stages during American tours in 1979 and 1980. The younger man, taking the advice of the master, subsequently went to work finding his own sound, influenced by the time he spent with revered jazz-fusion band the Dixie Dregs.
That journey took him to Nashville in 1983, and he quickly gained a reputation as the fiddler du jour, playing on more than 450 albums during a five-year period ending in 1990. His long list of recording credits includes work on discs by Randy Travis, Clint Black, Chet Atkins, Jimmy Buffett, Suzy Bogguss, Michael Brecker, James Taylor, David Grisman and Michelle Shocked.
O'Connor in recent years has applied his talents to a dizzying variety of projects, including fiddle concertos captured on albums released in 1995 and 1998, and a collaboration with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and bassist Edgar Meyer, recently reprised for the in-concert Appalachian Journey home video.
The trio, joined by James Taylor and Alison Krauss, touch on country, jazz, bluegrass and classical music.
Liberty!, the soundtrack for the 1997 PBS series, was a shot of Americana that included guest shots by Ma and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. O'Connor's latest orchestral work, The American Seasons: Seasons of an American Life, made its premiere with a Troy, N.Y., concert in April and will be released on CD next fall, to coincide with a national tour with the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra.
The musician has recently done a series of performances of his Double Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra, a jazz- and blues-influenced piece, with classical violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, which also will be recorded at some point. And he's at work on his first-ever choral piece, commissioned by Gloria Del Cantoris, a vocal group from Cape Cod.
Is there any genre O'Connor won't try, or any format he won't explore? "I don't want to take on a challenge just because it's different," he says. "I don't think I have an aptitude for risk. But if I really think I have something to offer, then I think I'd do myself a disservice not to (pursue the challenge).
"It seemed like, yes, new, yes, risk, but that wasn't enough for me. I wanted to do it only if I could have something to say."
O'Connor's decision to put together a series of Grappelli tribute concerts, in collaboration with Burr and guitarist Frank Vignola, resulted in part from his desire that the late violinist's tremendous contributions will continue to be recognized.
"I think now that Grappelli's gone, it may be more important for me to celebrate his legacy," O'Connor says. "I had this profound feeling that that was being endangered. I had hoped when Grappelli died that there would be more violin players who could play the swing music. I knew that I probably wasn't one of those, but that didn't mean I couldn't do a few dates, here and there, and just have fun with friends.
"Half of the program is traditional things associated with Grappelli, and we do some originals that I wrote, in the style of the swing of Grappelli. Jon contributes a beautiful lament in the repertoire. And Frank's guitar playing is just an incredible highlight. It's just a tour de force."
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