Search - Jean-Luc Ponty :: Best of Jean-Luc Ponty

Fans of Jean-Luc Ponty should be warned that The Best of Jean-Luc Ponty is somewhat misleadingly titled. Instead of the career overview the title implies, this is in fact only a sampling of tracks culled from three Columbia albums the pioneering violinist recorded from 1987 to 1991, The Gift of Time, Storytelling, and Tchokola. The music heard here is a far cry from the explosive material Ponty became known for with John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra in the 1970s--although Ponty's electric violin is still his main voice, here he relies much more on synthesizers and MIDI effects for layers of ambient sound, rather than the pyrotechnic fretwork that many fans may associate with him. The result, at its worst, is a kind of harmonically and rhythmically complex elevator music that is a little too clever and slick for its own good. At its best though, the music manages to carve a new path that intriguingly skirts the normal "jazz," "classical," and "fusion" labels. The best tracks by far are the three from the album Tchokola, recorded in 1991 with an amazing cast of Senegalese musicians. On "Bottle Pop," "Tchokola," and especially "Mouna Bowa," Ponty weaves his delicate violin lines over an intricate tapestry of West African percussion and chiming Afro-pop styled guitars and bass, achieving a wonderful kind of world fusion that is altogether in a class by itself. --Ezra Gale