I began playing the violin at the age of seven with no desire whatsoever. Started
again at nine with a little more desire thanks to my dear Gaby Gaglio, of the
Nice Conservatory, my dear Dede Robert, a friend of the family, my dear Veda
Reynolds at the Lyon Conservatory and of course, Marie-Claude Apap, my creatress,
who brought me without my request, on Planet Earth. But I thank her for it.
So anyway, these teachers taught me how to play Sevcik and Kreutzer almost in
tune and concertos with vibrato on every note, almost in tune. At the same time,
I listened to the late, greats--Fritzi, Yehudi and Zino. Learned more about
crusty, old Jascha through the great Nina Bodnar.
If you want to know who my favorite composer is, well I like everything I play
or I would not be playing it, unless of course, the money's good. Then I'll
play it, but I'll be sure not to play it again, unless the money's good.
I started playing the fiddle at the age of twenty-six. Better late than never.
It took me seventeen years to realize (with all due respect to dead composers),
that there was something out there that could open my third eye and all my chakras--Folk
Music. I had listened to a little bit of jazz, blues, swing and gypsy music
before, but never heard the sounds of Tommy Jarrell, Kevin Burke, Bill Monroe,
Ramanujam, his son Balaji, and Dennis McGee.
Then there were my traveling buddies. The great Jimmie Wimmer, who taught me
'The Cumberland Gap' and some Irish tunes for free and my other buddy Phil Salazar
who charged me $27.48 for an hour of blue grass, recorded 'Sally Gooden' for
me, and claims I asked him how to play dirty like him. On my 27th birthday,
(which was the 21st of May, 1963 in Bougie, Algeria) Phil brought me to my first
group therapy at the Strawberry Music Festival in Yosemite, which cured me from
all mind diseases that I had contracted in French conservatories and American
institutes over the years. I listened to my friends Ken and Jeannie Kepler who,
as well as playing Cajun tunes, got into this good and grounded traditional
New Mexican fiddle music of the Guachi Indians. Peter Feldman, well, we both
got divorced at about the same time. He cooked me some good pea soup and asked
if I could play 'Dixie Breakdown.'
Then what happened? Well, I still have this love for these living and dead
classical composers.
Yehudi Menuhin wrote something to me. If my life depended on it, I couldn't
put a phrase like that together. So here it is. I hope you like it.
"The different folklorique music, particularly that of people who, sadly,
are on the path of extinction, it's up to us to assimilate it, it's up to us
to be inspired by what it has to offer, by its characteristics, and to grant
this music a new resurgence by way of the creative imagination of musicians
who are able to play anything. For me, you are the example of a musician of
the 21st century. You represent the direction in which music should evolve;
on the one hand, the patrimonial respect of the precious classical works, presenting
them in the correct style and with the intense communication that was appropriate
to their time; on the other hand, the discovery of contemporary [popular] music
and its creative element, not only in the improvisation, but also in the interpretation."
|
