Carrying On
Stéphane Grappelli’s violin music was touched by both magic and genius, and he created tradition through his innovations. He was a singular stylist the world will probably not see the likes of again, and it is not because there is a lack of wanting to emulate him. It’s because he was just too good to be true.

I am proud to have been mentored by Stéphane. The last time we played together was about a year before his death. He gripped my hand strongly afterward and would not let go of it. I understood that the mission he had for me was to help carry on in his memory.

So here is to Stéphane Grappelli, the greatest natural violinist in the world. My colleagues and I will be talking and playing Grappelli for the rest of our lives, you can be sure.
—Mark O’Connor


Teacher—and Friend
I met Stéphane Grappelli for the first time on November 24, 1989, for a concert in the Cathedral of Senlis; he had expressed the wish to work with a “young” bass player and asked guitarist Marc Fosset to take care of finding someone. On the 20th, Marc phoned me—and in two days, he showed me the repertoire and his “conventions,” and I met Grappelli for the sound check. After that I never stopped playing with him, except in the United States, where he went on tour with Bucky Pizzarelli (guitar) and John Burr (bass) each year. Occasionally I had to be replaced if I had an important tour with the Orchestre des Contrebasses, but even though Stéphane was a little upset, he never got angry with me.

Tours were long, as we had to plan rest periods in between concerts so Grappelli could recuperate from tiredness. That allowed us to create a friendly relationship, full of complicity and lots of laughs. I was often told that the audience could feel that relationship while we were on the stage—and so much the better!

He always encouraged me to develop my own style; he taught a lot without ever giving lessons. His ability to adapt was also exceptional. Several times after he experienced health problems, I saw him modify his instrumental technique; the result gave priority to the musical line in its purity.

He also took great care of his violin, which he laughingly called his “business asset.” For ten years he played on a Jean Baptiste Guadagnini, with which he felt very comfortable. But I think Grappelli’s personal sound depended little on the instrument.
—Jean Philippe Viret


A Friend of Many Talents
For me, Stéphane Grappelli will always be a personality of mythic dimensions. In the early ’40s, I first heard his utterly incredible fiddle playing on recordings with the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, on an old hand-wound gramophone in Bombay. Some 40 years later, I heard him for the first time in performance at a Washington nightclub. Here was a wonderful, warm, gentle person who seemed unburdened by the usual human anxieties. In the words of Lord Yehudi Menuhin, who first recorded with him in 1972, “What a happy man he was himself. . . . He played the violin as a bird flies, his inspiration never failing him.”

The world knew Grappelli as a fantastic fiddler, but he also had another passion. His 1990 CD My Other Love (CBS MK-46257) features him at the piano. It is amazing how the then-82-year-old musician sustains the session without any rhythm.

We met in 1981 through mutual friends. We generally spoke French together, and the bond of the language, as well as music, drew us together. Over the years we met often, and I heard him in several concerts, including his session at Jazz Yatra, the jazz festival in Bombay in 1990, where he played with the Indian virtuoso L. Subramaniam. Grappelli straddled the two worlds of Indian music and jazz with consummate skill. The last time we met was after his 1995 concert at the Smithsonian. He had difficulty walking and had to be helped onto the stage, but, with the violin in his hands, the ravages of time disappeared. Zest, energy, good taste, and musicianship were his hallmarks. Afterward, as I wheeled him to his car, he said from his wheelchair, “La prochaine fois, Paris, peut-etre” [“next time in Paris, perhaps”]. Those were to be the last words he spoke to me.
—Sorab Modi