Blues, Jazz, Rock Violinists?

Not sure about forum etiquette...my apologies if reapeatedly saying "Thanks to all" is getting a little tedious. Philojet - agree with you and hope others benefit from the input on this thread. Orpheus - read with interest your multi-part "jazz tutorial". Personally, I'll take Bang's Castenada connection as a bit of a caution. Onhwy61 - I know little about Duke but he is an iconic figure. I will definitely check out your recommendation. And maybe that will serve as an intro to broader exploration of his work. Duane - thanks for the You Tube ideas. I like running my netbook through a DAC and watching the video while listening to the music.

Here are two good representative examples of Jean-Luc Ponty live. The creativity of his writing, playing, and arranging are special as usual. For me there is no one better playing violin:

"No Absolute Time"

"Mirage"

Once things get going, the OP is soon forgotten anyway. :)

You are a very astute observer, Rok2id.

Clear example of how tastes differ. I thought that Jean-Luc was just making noise, senseless music. I know him quite well, his best performances were with John McLaughlin and Mahavishnu Orchestra, just like everyone else's who played with John. He had this special gift to bring the best out of every player. But these days he plays junk too, like Ponty and many others.