Mark Feldman....

Violin: an instrument that stops some - the uninformed ones, let us believe - does not pass of a protagonist erudite, incapable to flirt with the music of clinks popular, with the jazz or improvised music. The spite of the preconceptions that devastate the jazz and of the amount of uninformed people, Stephanne Grappelli already proved, back in years 30 and 40, that the violin was capable to impose one swing and fraseado a so powerful how much one saxofone or one trompete (disrespecting there, clearly, the question of the timbres and intensities of these instruments, since in the cases of the violin and flute, for example, is needed good high microphones to be able to sound front to the timbres of the metal instruments).

But beyond Grappelli, still we have other examples as the eccentric person Stuff Smith, the great friend and sideman of Duke Ellington called Ray Nance, the Danish Svend Asmussen and old Joe Venuti (considered for many the father of the jazz violin). I only say these names to be in the pioneers who had been responsible for inserting this instrument in the sphere of the jazz improvisation, therefore has many other veterans who will be necessary to cite in an eventual and more including sampling: as, for example, the violinista of fusion Jean-Luc Ponty or Leroy Jenkins, important musician of free jazz. In those times, in the times of swing jazz, the violinist one was only one sideman - remembering that the great Stuff Smith is one of the first and only violinist to lead a band, one sextet that it passed if to present in the Onyx Club, NY, from 1935.

Today, however, the violin is, definitively, an instrument consolidated as leader and solist inside of the jazz, also with a space guaranteed in the lists of “Better of the Year” of the acclaimed one reviewed Downbeat, considered for a majority of the jazz lovers as the “Bible” of the sort. Between the few violinists that are always in the top of the related list of the magazine, Mark Feldman and Regina Carter already is names than more experienced. For comparison effect, it is enough to relate Regina Carter as being a species of “Wynton Marsalis of the violin” and Mark Feldman as being a species of “Dave Douglas”: Carter is a monster in the ancestry maisnstream, while Feldman does not leave to surprise in the ancestry of the jazz avant-garde. Mark Feldman with John Zorn' s Bar Kokhba Sextet. The trajectory of Mark Feldman, as well as the one of Regina Carter, is unusual and uncommon.

Feldman started its career in the decade of 70 with a foot in erudite music and the other in contributions to the musicians of rockabilly of Nashville, Tennessee, such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Jonny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Willie Nelson. In this height of 20 and few years, Feldman also had lessons of improvisation with the saxophonist Joe Daley (commented here for Rubens Akira), also starting to collaborate with great names of the jazz as the guitarist John Abercrombie. In ends of the decade of 80, after to have passed for Civic the Orchestra of Chicago, Mark Feldman was changed definitively for New Iorque, where “downtown” started to be part of the legion of vanguardists musicians of the scene such as John Zorn, Tim Berne, Hank Roberts, Joey Baron, Dave Douglas, Mark Dresser, Uri Caine, amongst others. Its contributions, at last, are registered in more than 150 records, considering its performances in bands of commercial singers as Sherry Crowl and Diana Ross, in bands of jazz and music improvised until its registers as leader or co-leader. Its first leader launching while was the fantastic Music will be Violin Alone, a record consisting of improvisations to the alone violin, without preset rhythms or accompaniment: one is about a register edited for the Tzadik (recorder of John Zorn), with 11 total and freely improvised bands, where the violinist puts to the test all its power to create sonorous phrases and textures pra there of unusual. Since then, Feldman launched 7 records as leader, considering records where it interprets the Jewish compositions of John Zorn that they integrate the series Book Of Angels (volume 3 called Malphas and the Masada Book II: The Book of Angels, Vol. 1, both of 2006). Between these, Feldman launched (also in 2006) a record for called stamp ECM Waht Exit, that is a true jewel of the jazz of matrix after-modernista: one is about a record with the minimalists textures of “conception ECM", where the violinist leads one quartet composed for the interesting drummer Tone Rainey (that it are non-separable partner of Tim Berne), for the pianist John Taylor and the Swedish contrastock exchange operator Anders Jormin, three of the most refined musicians who follow between avant-garde jazz, new music and improvised music.

People can be heard the powerful improvisations of the violin of Feldman in a shovel of interesting bands of the jazz contemporary: not to lose they are its contributions with John Zorn in records of the series Book Of Angels (amongst which the Malphas record is distinguished, in duo with its wife, the French pianist Sylvie Courvoisier), its performance with Tim Berne in the record Fractured Fairy Tales (JMT, 1989), with Dave Douglas in the Convergence records (Soul Note, 1998), the Thousand Evenings (BMG/RCA Victor, 2000) and Witness (Bluebird/BMG, 2001), beyond its participation in the Santuerio record (Leo, 1994) of the great pianista Marilyn Crispell and in the record volume 11 of the series 50th Birthday Celebration (Tzadik, 2006) with the Bar Kokhba Sextet. It is distinguished, over all, that the best formations of which Feldman participates are the Masada String Trio and the John Abercrombie Quartet (with the guitar John Abercrombie, the contrastock exchange operator Marc Johnson and Joey Baron on drums), with which it recorded the records Open Land (1999), Cat'n'Mouse (2002) and Class Trip (2004), all for the ECM.
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