Regina Carter
“I think a lot of people look at the violin and they get a little nervous. They have a stereotype of what the violin is–very high, kind of shrill-sounding with long notes, and a lot of vibrato. It doesn’t have to be that at all, it can be a very fiery persuasive instrument and that’s how I like to use it.”-Regina Carter
Famous for her scintillating and sophisticated violin solos, Regina Carter, born August 6, 1966 to a proud school teacher in Detroit, Michigan, is an American jazz powerhouse. Discovering the passion for classical violin at the tender age of 4, Carter embarked on an educational journey and honed her skills at the Suzuki Method until she was 9. It wasn’t until high school in Cass Technical High School that she got musically inclined to jazz violin when her close friend, future jazz singer Carla Cook, introduced her to the music of Ella Fitzgerald, Jean-Luc Ponty, Noel Pointer, and Stephanie Grapelli, who notably convinced her that jazz was her calling. Even in high school she started performing with the Detroit Civic Orchestra, with pop/funk group Brainstorm and pursued jazz studies with Detroit trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, bassist Bob Hurst and organist Lymon Woodard. She then received a degree in music from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan and moved on to the prestigious New England Conservatory Music in Boston before focusing on her jazz career in 1987.
She first came into the spotlight when she teamed up with New York’s all-female jazz quintet Straight Ahead which included Cynthia Dewberry, Gailyn McKinney, Eileen Orr and Marion Hayden up until the year 1995. Her funky smooth jazz, old style swing and classical quintet music has produced 3 albums for Atlantic jazz label with Carter leaving the group before the release of the third album “Dance of the Forest Rain”. She soon found herself working with Max Roach, the String Trio of New York and the Uptown String Quartet before she recorded her self-titled debut recording “Regina Carter” (1995)and another album dedicated to her mother “Something for Grace”(1997) on Atlantic. Leaving Atlantic Records for Verve Records in 1998, she recorded two more albums “Rhythms of the Heart” and “Motor City Moments”, acclaimed as one of her finest.
December 31, 2001, she recorded “Paganini: After a Dream” for Verve records after playing a concert in Genoa. She became the first jazz musician and the first African-American to play the 250-year old II Cannone Guarnerius violin which was formerly owned by Niccolo Paganini. Also a mentor of the Suzuki method at the Berklee College of Music and Stanford Jazz Workshop, she has also done sessions with Faith Evans, Mary J. Blige and Detroit techno legend Carl Craig.
On the fretful year of 2006, her mother Grace Carter passed and as a tribute to the woman who first encouraged her into music, she recorded and released the album “I’ll Be Seeing You: A Sentimental Journey” which included her violin interpretations of the popular “Sentimental Journey”, “This Can’t be Love” and “A-Tisket, A-Tisket”.
Edited: September 25th, 2011