STÉPHANE GRAPPELLI

Stéphane Grappelli (1908-1997) is considered by many jazz historians to be the greatest of all jazz violinists. To omit such jazz violin greats as Joe Venuti, Stuff Smith and Eddie South, among others from this conversation would be most certainly be a mistake to say the least, but it is well documented and widely accepted that it was Grappelli who became the most famous and well known of them all, owing largely in part to not only his immense talent, but to a long and prolific career.

When undertaking the task of transcribing the performances of Grappelli, it was my purpose from the very beginning to decipher and illustrate many of the trade-mark violinistic techniques used and favored by him. His soulful use of sliding portimenti, thrown and fingered harmonics, bowing and fingering solutions to technically demanding passages, as well as his great propensity and skill in the use of accents and syncopation, among other musical attributes, were all techniques I wished to discover for myself in writing these transcriptions. This current collection of transcriptions, (almost 200 to date) spans the entire career of this legendary artist, from early his days with Django Reinhardt in the early to mid-1930’s, to recorded works with various ensembles in the 1990’s. The end result is a collection of Grappelli transcriptions that specify not just his use of notes and rhythms, but illuminate and illustrate the style, manner and musicianship in which he performed.

These transcriptions are not for sale directly to the public. However, I will be more than happy to share them with you in a private lesson setting. Additionally, if you have a particular Grappelli performance you wish to learn, feel free to contact me for a complete list of the collection. The accompanying audio files are a few examples of my transcriptions that I have recorded in real time along with/over the original Grappelli recordings.