Grappling with Grappelli: Contemporary jazz violin pedagogy and the legacy of gypsy jazz

The violin has been played in jazz from the beginning of the music's history, and yet it has, until relatively recently, been somewhat neglected as a significant jazz instrument in terms of both performance and education. One style of jazz in which the violin is significant is so-called 'gypsy jazz', which originated with the formation of Le Quintette du Hot-club de France in the early 1930s featuring gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli. The success of this group led to Grappelli being considered central to jazz violin and gypsy jazz, and the gypsy jazz style-initially a French phenomenon-being equated with jazz violin as the everyday aesthetic of jazz violin. The number of successful French jazz violinists following Grappelli (including Jean-Luc Ponty and Didier Lockwood) has led to the idea of a 'French school' of jazz violin, and a number of recently published jazz violin tutor books base their approach on the premise that the Grappelli swing style is central to jazz violin, despite many contemporary jazz violinists choosing to play in more modern styles. The authors critically consider the existence of a 'French school' of jazz violin and whether teaching the Grappelli style is an effective approach to jazz violin pedagogy.