★★★★★
It's hard to believe that this is Jean Luc Ponty's first album in seven years. I was introduced to Ponty's music in the early eighties while I was making my way around the world with the U.S. Navy. The "Civilized Evil" album was an eye-opener and an exciting doorway into the world of jazz-fusion for me. I had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Ponty perform live at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco several years later. It was a dream come true, and an exceptional experience that I will never forget...
- www.jazzreview.com
2010-08-23
★★★★★
As a violinist in the changing music world of the 1960s and 1970s, Jean-Luc Ponty was it. He was a pioneer on the instrument, plugging in to be heard with screeching guitars and blaring horns. He not only had the chops-busting harmonic and rhythmic language of bebop down pat, but he had virtuoso abilities from his classical training...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2010-08-20
★★★★★
For album No. 15, fusion violinist
Jean Luc Ponty went to Paris, linked up with some West Africans, and
concocted his own world music hybrid, in the long shadow of Paul
Simon's Graceland. This all-too-familiar process is, at best, a
testament to the culture-hopping universality of music. At worst,
it's a synthetic pastiche. Tchokola falls somewhere in the middle...
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
Jean Luc Ponty recorded a live performance at Semper Opera in Dresden, Germany on May 25, 2001. This CD is the result of that recording. Ponty and his longtime band cover material from earlier classic progressive jazz fusion albums to present day world-fusion compositions. Every song is an adventure by the eclectic and forward thinking electric violinist. The appreciative crowd is in harmony with the band on this evening, and the music ostensibly ebbs and flows with that energy...
- www.jazzreview.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
A living legend looks both backwards and forwards, crafting unique music of profound elegance. It's been a while since Jean-Luc Ponty graced us with a solo album of this caliber. His rewarding detour into The Rite of Strings is behind him for now as the electric violinist revisits the pop-jazz fusion that made him a megastar in the 70s and 80s. Life Enigma is no regression, however. The pop consciousness of his past is transfigured into a sound more appropriate for the new century...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2009-06-05
★★★★★
Track Listing: Intro; Parisian Thoroughfare; Premonition; Point of No Return; Back in the 60's; Without Regrets; Celtic Steps; Desert Crossing; Last Memories of Her; The Acatama Experience; On My Way to Bombay; Still in Love; Euphoria; To and Fro...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2009-06-05
★★★★★
Track Listing: Two Thousand and One Years Ago; Signals From Planet Earth; The Infinite Human Caravan; Lonely Among All; Firmament; Pizzy Cat; Life Enigma; Even The Sun Will Die; Love At Last Sight; And Life Goes On. Personnel: Jean Luc Ponty: 5-string electric violin, keyboards, electronic percussion/drums, synclavier, MIDI electric violin, effects and electronic woodblock; Guy Nsangue Akwa: electric bass; William Lecomte: piano; Thierry Arpino: drums and shaker; Moustapha Cisse; percussion...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2009-06-05
★★★★★
Track Listing: CD1 (Electric Connection): Summit Soul; Hypomode Del Sol; Scarborough Fair/Canticle; The Name of the Game; The Loner; Waltz for Clara; Forget; Eighty-One; CD2 (King Kong: Jean-Luc Ponty Plays the Music of Frank Zappa): King Kong; Idiot Bastard Son; Twenty Small Cigars; How Would You Like to Have a Head Like That; Music for Electric Violin and Low Budget Orchestra; America Drinks and Goes Home...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2009-06-05
★★★★★
Track Listing: CD1 (King Kong: Jean-Luc Ponty Plays the Music of Frank Zappa): King Kong; Idiot Bastard Son; Twenty Small Cigars; How Would You Like to Have a Head Like That; Music for Electric Violin and Low Budget Orchestra; America Drinks and Goes Home. CD2 (The Jean-Luc Ponty Experience with The George Duke Trio): Foosh; Pamukkale; Contact; Canteloupe Island; Starlight, Starbright...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2009-06-05
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