strings

“Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does. ” Tony Wilson

I think listeners lose themselves in the smooth, stylistic jazz as the musicians revel in playing it. How about a jazzy day? Here is a little swinging jazz with string instrument photos and jazz violin music to accompany it.

Violinists know how to string a special type of jazz.

“Jazz violin is the use of the violin or electric violin to improvise and perform utilizing scales and chord progressions unique to the compositions of Jazz musicians . The earliest references to jazz performance using the violin as a solo instrument was during the first decades of the 20th century. Early jazz violinists were Eddie South, who played violin with Jimmy Wade’s Dixielanders in Chicago; Stuff Smith; Claude Williams, who played with Andy Kirk and his Twelve Clouds of Joy; Joe Venuti, who is best known for his work with guitarist Eddie Lang during the 1920s, and Georgie Stoll, who became an orchestra leader and film music director. Since that time there have been many superb improvising violinists including Stéphane Grappelli and Jean-Luc Ponty. While not primarily jazz violinists, Darol Anger andMark O’Connor have spent significant parts of their careers playing jazz, while emerging artists like Sara Caswell and Jeremy Kittel have devoted themselves almost exclusively to jazz both progressive and “old-fashioned.” Violins also appear in string ensembles or big bands supplying orchestral backgrounds to many jazz recordings.” Wikipedia