Track Listing

1. Bowing-Bowing
2. Aurora, Pt. 2
3. Renaissance
4. New Country
5. Enigmatic Ocean, Pt. 3
6. Mirage
7. Egocentric Molecules
8. Cosmic Messenger
9. I Only Feel Good With You
10. No Strings Attached [Live]
11. Taste for Passion
12. Forms of Life
13. Rhythms of Hope
14. Final Truth, Pt. 1
15. Individual Choice
16. Infinite Pursuit

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111407 in Music
• Released on: 2000-06-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Amazon.com
The French-born violinist Jean-Luc Ponty bridged the old jazz styles of Stephane Grappelli and Joe Venuti and contemporary stylists such as the late Noel Pointer and Regina Carter. He was schooled in the classics, played with Frank Zappa in the 1960s and with the Mahavishnu Orchestra and George Duke in the '70s. Although his violin and his electrified violectra were staples in the fusion era, his musicality was solidly based in the classics and jazz, as evidenced here by his hornlike phrasing on "Bowing-Bowing" with keyboardist Patrice Rushen and his Cajun intro on "Aurora, Part II." He takes a page from Philip Glass's minimalist riffs on "Mirage," the spacy "Cosmic Messenger," and "No Stings Attached," a fiery live date. There's even a New Age presence with guitarist Joaquin Lievano on "A Taste for Passion." At the end of the day, though, The Very Best of shows abundantly that Ponty could rock out with the best of them. Check out "Infinite Pursuit," a sonic twin to the Police's "Synchronicity," and you'll hear a musician who makes electronics swing in any idiom. --Eugene Holley Jr.

Customer Reviews

A Good Intro To Ponty
But I tend to think that the typical customer for this kind of retrospective is someone who listened to Ponty in the past and is looking to rebuild a collection. That being the case, I would suggest that instead of settling for this CD sampler, you buy the first five albums: "Upon The Wings Of Music," "Aurora," "Imaginary Voyage," "Enigmatic Ocean," and "Cosmic Messenger." Having followed Ponty over the years, I find that that is still the best stuff. If you're not sure about spending so much, go ahead and get this. It's a pretty good deal. But I bet you'll wind up doing what I do, which is mostly just to listen to the first half of the CD.

Absolutely The Best!
My prog-rock past allowed me to experience Jean Luc Ponty's awesome prowess on violin when I was a teenager in Montreal. It seemed natural to hear "New Country" on FM radio airwaves right alongside songs from Genesis, The Strawbs, E.L.P and Gentle Giant. Sure, Ponty was considered a "jazz" artist. Yep, he recorded "fusion" albums, which many jazz critics will tell you weren't jazz enough to be jazz or rock enough to be rock. And though he's a violinist, he isn't anything like the jazz violin heroes of the fifties (like, say, Stuff Smith). At the core of his albums lay inventiveness, expansive use of sound and technology, improvisation and - dare I say it - a certain degree of commercial professionalism that transcended the usual jazz-guys noodling-with-synthesizers [stuff] so common of the form. Here, Rhino's superb anthology does two things: 1) it sets up casual listeners with the VERY best of Ponty from his VERY best albums (recorded for Atlantic in the mid-1970s). 2) It sets up those who love this stuff to seek out LE VOYAGE, Rhino's 2-disc retrospective of the man's career. You'll love VERY BEST OF so much, you'll want more. More than just jazz, more than just a violin player with chops, this is intricate yet rewarding music. Played with brio and with passion. An essential collection.

Go for the 2CD "Anthology" instead, 32 tracks, same price
I had a good friend, Paul, back in the day who had several Jean-Luc Ponty albums but at the time my tastes were more limited in scope. But over time as I found myself growing weary of rock and roll I remembered my friend and I seeing this artist in concert with the group Renaissance (circa 1979). So earlier this year I downloaded Ponty's song "Renaissance" to refresh my memory. Ah, what a wonderful re-discovery!

That single download encouraged me to purchase this "Very Best of Jean-Luc Ponty", a 16 track compilation that has turned out to be satisfying from start to finish.

My only regret is that I didn't get the 2CD, 32 track, "Jean-Luc Ponty Anthology - Le Voyage" instead. This was simply due to ignorance of its existence. However, I notice that Amazon has priced that mp3 album at 9.99 just like this collection, and it contains every track that this single disk overview contains. I will let others expound upon the performer's artistry and talent; I would simply encourage you to start with the larger collection at the same price and I hope you enjoy this music as much as I've been enjoying it.