Jazz Articles

Jean Luc Ponty: In Concert

by Dennis Cook
November 25, 2004

There's a reason jazz-fusion has a bad reputation. It frequently takes the simple, graceful sway of group themes and solos and allows the latter to dominate in icky extended masturbatory excess. At the same time, the melodies are often an afterthought, an excuse for noodling and aimless technique demonstrations. Jean Luc Ponty once apprenticed with Frank Zappa, who knew a thing or two about complex musicianship paired with equally complex compositions. In the intervening decades, he's slipped into the same ...