My journey from classical violin to jazz violin
Recently, I was interviewed by violinist Leah Roseman, who asked me about my background and my discovery of the jazz violin…
The whole text is transcribed, but obviously I can’t write what I’m playing… Because yes, she asked me to play violin too…
So I suggest you go listen to my track “Souffle” at the beginning of the video / podcast, and also a violin improvisation on “Autumn Leaves” a little later!
Don’t hesitate to take a look at Leah’s website, where she offers online violin lessons, here is the link: VIOLIN LESSONS ONLINE
You can find this interview on her PODCAST “Conversations with musicians” as well as other interviews with violinists and other instrumentalists.
You can also find these interviews with all this interesting information on her Youtube channel.
Now let’s get to the heart of the matter! Here is the video interview, and the text transcription below.
The interview :
Leah Roseman:
Hi, Eva Slongo, jazz violinist and pedagogue joining us from Paris. Thanks so much for agreeing to play a little bit. You’re going to play one of the… a part of a tune from your new album?
Eva Slongo:
Yes, I will try to do it now. (Then I sing and play my tune “Souffle”…)
Leah Roseman:
Thank you. That was really great. I was hoping you’d sing because I’ve heard what a wonderful singer you are as well as violinist. And we’ll talk about your journey from classical into jazz and everything, but I’m curious, were you singing much before you got into jazz or was it part of that?
Eva Slongo:
Yes, when I was studying classical music, I also took some singing lessons, but in classical music, lyrical singing lessons. And then when I began to study jazz violin, I wanted to… I used the singing, the voice, to learn how to improvise. And then I began to scat a lot, to do a lot of scat improvisation with the voice. And then I tried to do it together with the violin because it gave me a better swing feel. It helped me a lot to feel the swing in jazz. And finally, it happened that I began to do it also in concert, to scat and play and a lot of people told me it was good, that I had to do it another time and all that. And then I learned some lyrics too, of jazz standards and then I began really to mix voice and violin at every concert.
Leah Roseman:
So wonderful.
Eva Slongo:
More violin. Always more violin, but I add the voice or as an instrument like I almost did now without lyrics, but also sometimes with lyrics of Jazz standards.
Leah Roseman:
Actually, now that you’re kind of… you’ve been playing a little, would you be willing to play another tune, maybe a Jazz standard, an improv on your violin so we can hear a little bit?
Eva Slongo:
Yes. I was improvising on Autumn Leaves, but I directly started with an improvisation.
Leah Roseman:
Yes.
Eva Slongo:
Do you want to play with the playback to listen more the harmony too or…
Leah Roseman:
Sure. If you want to. Yeah.
Eva Slongo:
Okay.
Leah Roseman:
Awesome. Thank you.
Eva Slongo:
Thank you.
Leah Roseman:
So, I was just thinking it’s so great, it’s easy for people to get backing tracks now to practice jazz.
Eva Slongo:
Yes, yes, yes. You just go on YouTube and have some backing track.
Leah Roseman:
But when you were starting out as a jazz musician and you moved to Paris, which we’ll get to, I know they have a really big scene for jam sessions and stuff. So you had that ability to just play with people.
Eva Slongo:
Yes, yes. I was going out a lot every night, most of all in gypsy jazz session because… jam sessions, because with the violin it was really more easy to integrate myself in the jam session, because in the jazz jam session there’s always the thing of the sound, that it’s complicated. In gypsy jazz you can just play acoustic like that and it’s more easy. But then I also prefer to play jazz so I went also to jazz jam sessions, but then I had a lot of concerts in gypsy jazz, but not in jazz because, as I played violin, people call me for gypsy jazz. That’s why I created also my band, my own band with my compositions that are more jazz, with the jazz inspiration to be able to play also in jazz band and not only gypsy jazz. I really like gypsy jazz, but I wanted to have also other opportunities.
With my own band I play my compositions that are inspired from more actual jazz. More recent jazz. Also inspired a little by pop music. Now, also, I mixed… I just recorded an album and I mixed classical and jazz for the first time because first I was a classical violinist, I studied classical music, I did all the diplomas to teach and then to make concepts, and the concept diploma, teaching all that, but then I stopped. I really was a little tired of all the ground of the classic music, or all the world of classical music. When I earned my studies, when I ended my studies, I just stopped playing completely classic music and I start to… I had already started to study jazz violin before I ended my classical studies, but not really deeply. And then, after my studies, I stopped classical and I began to study more seriously jazz.
But it was like I started another time at the beginning because it’s really different way to think the music, to think the rhythm, to think the harmony. It’s… interpret another sound, another type of sound, really, but another technique also.
It’s not… It’s another technique, but it doesn’t matter to play both because then with jazz technique you use another technique, but to make a different sound too, so it’s okay. I use more the fingers now. It’s a little different, but now when I play classical, it’s okay. I can really use the same technique to play classical. I even have found some things more easy with my new technique with my fingers and less arm.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
So when you were a classical student, I’d read that you’d really had physical problems and you just felt like you couldn’t be expressive, like it wasn’t a good fit for you.
Eva Slongo:
Yes. You talk about physical problems. Yes, I had to stop two times for long, for several weeks, I think, because I had so much shoulder ache, shoulder pain, really, really, because it was a lot of work, a lot of practice, hours and hours, and very… I don’t know, with jazz then I began to be more relaxed and I have really less, I could say, maybe almost no more physical problems.
And then also with the music, I was born in a family of classical musicians so I really was into classical, but then, I don’t know, there were so much rules for interpretation, and then so much rules. And then, at the end, my teacher was saying, “Okay, now you have to find your own personality,” and I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find my personality. And when I began to improvise, I had some newer sensations. Really, I was feeling really better. Even at the beginning when I didn’t learn… know the language, I didn’t know anything, I just used my hearing to improvise. I think it was bad, but the feeling I had was really nice. I really was into a state of “euphorie.”
Leah Roseman:
Euphoria. Yeah.
Eva Slongo:
Euphoria. And meditation in the same time. It was something, some different place I was in my head and I really liked this place and I wanted to go more deeper in this place. And I couldn’t feel that when I was playing in orchestra or… No, I didn’t feel the same so…
Leah Roseman:
And on your way to jazz, I know you had explored tango, you’d even gone to Buenos Aires to-
Eva Slongo:
Yes.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, so there is a little bit of improvisation in tango, but not really. Is that the case?
Eva Slongo:
No. So I thought it was because when I… I’m from Switzerland, so when I studied jazz, I studied classical in Switzerland. And then the first time I began to play with a band that was doing improvisation, they were… the musician were playing Piazzolla, but doing it in a jazzy way. So I began to play them and to improvise with them on Piazzolla, but… And I thought it was like that, tango, it was improvisation, but it was because the band was playing the Piazzolla like that. So that’s why then I went to Buenos Aires, to study a little bit the language of tango and it was really great. Great experience. But I realized that there was not… You can improvise the ornaments. There are some freedom, sure, but it’s not really…
I think band, on the honest, make real improvisation. With violinists, no. I had really impression that improvisation was not really for violinists. Maybe they do, but it’s not the thing, it’s not the essence of playing tango is not with improvisation. It is an interpretation. Free, but interpretation. And [inaudible]. Also then, if you want to play it good you have to really listen the ornaments, the way to do of all the tango violin players. You have to go deep into that.
And then, there I met a Swiss violinist and she was playing gypsy jazz and I listened to her. I had already began a little bit with jazz, taking jazz violin lessons before, but not a lot, not seriously. And then, there I heard… I listened to her in a concert and then the last date, the very last day of my trip there in Buenos Aires she invited me to do a jam session, gypsy jazz jam session and I just knew two… knew, no, but I was able to play Minor Swing, and I think that’s all or… Two things. Two standards I knew and I wasn’t able to play. A little bit. But then I realized that was really what I wanted to learn and to study.
Then I came back to Switzerland with the goal to study more jazz. Before that, I tried a lot. I tried also Baroque music. I tried Balkanique. I tried… I knew I needed to play also other music than classical music. So, I was looking for things, but then, back from this travel, I knew I wanted to concentrate on jazz. I was still learning classical music, but I knew that the thing I wanted to study more beside my classical studies was jazz and I wanted to focus on that. I still didn’t know that afterwards I would stop classical and do only jazz, but I knew I wanted to go deeper in jazz .
Leah Roseman:
I was wondering, I’d heard you say in one of your other interviews that when you were first playing and there were people dancing, maybe it was a gypsy jazz gig or something.
Eva Slongo:
No, it was not. No, it was Bossa Nova.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Eva Slongo:
No, it was just… The first time I… Yes, yes. That was before, that was still before the band. It was just a coincidence. I was in a bar and I met some… a mother of a friend of mine. I had my violin and she knew a guitarist that was playing, a Brazilian guitarist that was playing Bossa Nova and singing. She told me, “Ah, but you can play with him.” I’m like, “Oh, but I don’t know.” “Ah, play, play.” And then I tried and, yes, there were people dancing like that. I don’t know what I played. I think I played, I don’t know, bad, certainly, but just with hearing. And Bossa Nova is also not so simple, but I felt something very strong, yes, something… I had a very deep feeling of joy and of something that I didn’t knew in classical music world, really. And then I couldn’t sleep in the night and I was, “I want to do that. I want to do that.”
I was very excited, really, about this moment and this feeling and… Yes, that makes part of the moment I lived that made me then go more to look for improvisation, improvisatory music, and jazz.
Leah Roseman:
It shows a lot of courage and initiative that you would just say yes to these opportunities when you weren’t, maybe, ready. You just went for it. That’s really great. And…
Eva Slongo:
Yes. You mean that I was… yeah. Improvisation? I think maybe when I was small too, sometimes I was improvisating just like that. Just alone. It was not the first time I played without scores but, yes, in a context like that, it was maybe one of the first times.
Leah Roseman:
So you studied with Pierre Blanchard in Switzerland.
Eva Slongo:
Yes.
Leah Roseman:
And he gave you a bit of a formation in jazz. What kind of things did you learn from him that really got you started?
Eva Slongo:
I… He learned me a lot. I think I studied four years with him, but I didn’t practice a lot because that was while my classical studies and I had already to study classical six hours a day. So I didn’t practice a lot, but he came only once a month. It was like a quiet evolution. But he learned me, he teached me how to play, but first he gave me an access to Stéphane Grappelli. He made me study the chorus of Stéphane Grappelli and he teached me a lot of the swing, how to do the basic things about swing. And the bow technique, the ghost notes I didn’t know before. Yes. Then he made me do some transcriptions also of saxophone figures, like Charlie Parker, John Coltrane.
Eva Slongo:
And he learned me a lot about harmony, which note to play on which chord and why it sounds good, and why this one doesn’t sound good. Maybe he was the only one really to teach me to do ways in playing. The way you go, and then you can go there and there. Like surfing between the chords because the chords are the harmony of the standard And, yes, that was very, very helpful. How to play… What to play over 2-5-1. How to find the interesting note in the good moment. And I learned a lot of that from him.
Leah Roseman:
Since you’ve become a professional jazz player, have you played with him since then? Done any collaborations?
Eva Slongo:
Not officially, because then I went to Paris. He was living in Paris, actually, then. Then I went to the school of Didier Lockwood and I lose a little contact with him because he was still teaching in Switzerland, but I was not a lot in Switzerland. Then I met him in New York when I was there and he was playing there with Dorado Schmitt, big jazz club of New York . And then, yes, we made some jam sessions there after the concerts and it was very nice.
Leah Roseman:
So the Centre des Musiques Didier Lockwood is really a special school.
Eva Slongo:
So, yes, the school of Didier Lockwood, it’s very good because… I was lucky to have Didier personally in the lessons. But then, also, the whole school is very good. The whole direction of teaching there is really, really good. There are a lot of very good teachers, not only for violin, but also… There you really learn how to improvise. You practice rhythm a lot, you practice hearing, you practice the technical aspect of the instrument too, but that’s really not only that. It’s really, really very complete, I have to say.
Eva Slongo:
And there was also another teacher, a violin teacher, that was very good, Johan Renard, that helped me a lot to find a lot of things. And Didier was fantastic also. Very special character, but… No, character? Yes, you say that? But personality. I really feel lucky to have had this opportunity to practice with him and I learned a lot of… He was insisting a lot about the swing feel and the rhythm feel. The time that was really the thing. He was really doing… making us always tap with the foot while playing to have a good time to feel it in the, in the “ventre”.
Leah Roseman:
In the belly, yeah.
Eva Slongo:
In the belly. And, yes, insisting a lot about that. And also about the fingers of the right hand a lot. The whole year. And then, that’s was his principle points of teaching and how to tell a story when you improvise too, that was very important. I think on these three points, he insisted a lot. Swing feel, bow technique and tell a story.
Leah Roseman:
So, in terms of telling a story, just the shaping of the phrases, the way it builds.
Eva Slongo:
No, it’s more… No, not really. He was not teaching anything about… Yes, a little bit, but not so much about which note to play. For him, it was all instinctive. He was playing all by instinct by hearing, so very naturally. So he didn’t really teach which note to play on which chord, like I could learn with Pierre Blanchard. It was more how to really express yourself through the music. He was also doing a sing, not really sing, but making some… rude while playing. Something like… he was doing that. And then that inspired me also a lot to sing together, to start from the singing and then to try to play like I sing, and not to sing what I play. Play what I sing.
Eva Slongo:
And then that… Because the problem is we play some string instrument and we can play always. It’s not like a wind instrument that has to breathe. A wind instrument has to breathe to play. And so, the phrases, all the solo is always more logic, better constriction, because it’s like when you speak, you have to rest, you make some phrases with a beginning and then you breathe. That’s the problem also with the guitar, they play always a lot of notes. That’s why singing helped me a lot also to give a better constriction to my solos and to build some something. Because when you play a solo during two minutes, if you play always the same then it’s boring. It doesn’t have to be boring. So you tell something, then another thing and then… That’s… You can climb the solo and then at the end it can go back or not. But then, these kind of things, you… It’s very important also to master. Not to master, just to practice.
Leah Roseman:
So at the school there’s a very high level, and you met a lot of colleagues that you play with now?
Eva Slongo:
In this school, there is a really highly level in jazz, in other instruments than violin. But the violin players, there are some that arrive in the school. Some are “virtuoses”, but has never played jazz before. So the jazz level is not always so high in violin, but in other instruments, yes. In piano, in drums, there are a very high level. But violin players, I think they come from different…
Leah Roseman:
Background?
Eva Slongo:
Yes. Background. Yes, exactly. I was lucky to write there and already had studied a lot with Pierre Blanchard before so I already knew the language and I could really enjoy more of the school. Because if I would have been a beginner in jazz, I think I would have enjoyed less all what school could bring to me.
Leah Roseman:
It seems to me like most jazz violinists start in classical, but I’m curious-
Eva Slongo:
Yes.
Leah Roseman:
Jazz pianists. Do you think a lot of them also start in classical?
Eva Slongo:
No. For example, the piano player, Giovanni Mirabassi, I play with now. He’s incredible, he has an incredible technique and also very nice sound and doesn’t play so loud. Can be very, very in the details, but he never studied classic music. Sometimes I play with piano player and I think they have, and then I ask them… Last week, I played with a fantastic player, Baptiste Bailly, in duo and he really had a good sound and we made some classical tunes too, mixed with jazz and I ask him, “Ah, but have you studied classical?” And he said, “No. Now I’m trying to practice a little bit classical music,” but he doesn’t come from classical.
Leah Roseman:
So because you’ve… You’re a band leader and you write your own tunes, you’ve carved your own path with your career, but also your pedagogy, which I’d like to talk about because, before this pandemic, you were online doing all this wonderful teaching with your program.
Eva Slongo:
It’s already before. Because I started to do my blog to teach jazz violin, first in French, only in French, while my first confinement ever. That was my pregnancy. And so it was at the end of my first pregnancy and I was very frustrated to have to cancel all my concerts. I wanted to go until the end on the scene. And then to be back very soon on the scene, but then it’s not like that. It happened for who. I had some example of women that could really continue until 10 days before the giving birth. I couldn’t, I really… I was almost “handicapée.”
Leah Roseman:
Handicapped.
Eva Slongo:
I couldn’t walk anymore. It was difficult and I had a lot of pain. So the two last months I was at home and I began with that, yes, at this moment. And that was good because then I was… It gave me motivation.
Eva Slongo:
And then also with the baby, I had to cancel all the things and I was continuing to do this. But then, with the… Yeah, I had a second child. It’s not so easy to be so regular. It’s not so easy, but I now with the school and the nursery, it’s really more easy to do this work because now I like to do that.
Eva Slongo:
And with the pandemic, that show that I could develop more. That, and now I have some things, but I don’t know how it will be in the next month. So I really like to develop this activity on internet. And I like to… I have a lot of very, very good testimonies. I don’t know, but people tell me a lot of good things about what I do. And it’s real interesting. And I can work by myself when I want I’m independent. I like also this independent. And with small children, it’s always difficult to travel a lot for concerts and not to be at home. It’s not so easy, but I do it.
Eva Slongo:
But this weekend I was to France. From Friday to Sunday, I went to France, but… Yeah. When you have train children, it’s a lot, it’s…
Leah Roseman:
But you’re in Paris. You said you went-
Eva Slongo:
No, now I’m in Spain.
Leah Roseman:
Oh, okay.
Eva Slongo:
But I don’t… This year I’m in Spain and I don’t know what will be the future.
Leah Roseman:
It’s important to talk about these things of balancing family life and music, especially with women, because, in the past, it was so male dominated, no one questioned, “Are they even seeing their children?” or, “They’re touring all the time,” but it’s so sad when people give up having a family because of their career. We should be able to do all the things.
Eva Slongo:
Yes. The… What is sure is that when I was pregnant, I missed some opportunities to do concerts, but it’s also not so… There will be others, so it’s not, you know, It’s not-“pas grave”.
Leah Roseman:
That serious. Yeah.
Eva Slongo:
It’s okay. It’s not so… And then it won’t influence all my life. And then, yes, I had to cancel some things, but if I wouldn’t have children, I think I would never have done this whole thing of teaching on internet.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Eva Slongo:
And now I really enjoyed that too. So it’s different. It has consequences, that’s sure. But it’s also, it’s not so easy for me to play with my own band. I was a little disappointed also to not have been really programmed in some festivals. It’s not easy.
Eva Slongo:
And I think with or without children, it wouldn’t have changed a lot. But with children, I became more patient with all that, because before I wanted to go to play in festivals, to be… But you have to have good relations with the good persons and that could, could take time to… take years to become present on the jazz scene. It really… And maybe you won’t become, so… But before I was really like, “I want that,” but now with my children, I’m also happy and it’s okay. I’m less… I’m more patient and things come when it have to come and if it doesn’t come, it’s okay.
Leah Roseman:
Do you think-
Eva Slongo:
I do everything I can for the things that could come, but then it’s not only when I do that, but the time is important. To have patience, that’s very important. And the children gave me… Teaching patience.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Do you think it’s harder as a jazz violinist or just the jazz world in general to, sort of, get more known?
Eva Slongo:
I think it’s more difficult as a woman, as a violinist in jazz world. Yeah. Not in jazz in general, but I think as a woman playing instrument and it’s more difficult in the jazz world because jazz world is really world of men, gypsy jazz also. But then, I don’t know, it’s changing, so maybe there will be since some possibilities still.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah.
Eva Slongo:
But now until now, yes, it’s not so easy. As a woman, it’s not so easy and just violin in jazz is not so… It’s good because it’s not so common, so it’s also good to make something original, but people won’t look, especially for that. So I think it has advantages and inconvenience. It’s like being a woman, I think there are some advantages, because there are also people that want to see women, but for… No, I didn’t really enjoy the… I think I didn’t enjoy the advantages, but some day, maybe.
Leah Roseman:
And so, your parents were classical musicians?
Eva Slongo:
Yes.
Leah Roseman:
And how did they influence you growing up? In terms of music or…
Eva Slongo:
Oh, I don’t know. I was just in that world. They educated me really always with music, make me sing when I was very little. And then my mother was piano player. And when I was four, I remember having seen her playing with a violinist in a concert. And I remember that from this day I wanted to play violin. So I discovered violin true to them. But, first, no, because first I discovered piano because my… And my father plays organ. So before, to listen to violin, I listened to piano and to organ, but then I discovered violin and that was what I wanted.
Leah Roseman:
And your partner’s a jazz musician?
Eva Slongo:
Yes. He plays gypsy guitar.
Leah Roseman:
So do you think your kids are naturally going to want to play jazz?
Eva Slongo:
I don’t know, but my daughter of five years old, we already teach her violin and flaut.
Leah Roseman:
Flute or do you mean recorder?
Eva Slongo:
What?
Leah Roseman:
Recorder? Like “flûte-a-bec” or you mean-
Eva Slongo:
“Flûte-a-bec”
Leah Roseman:
Recorder.
Eva Slongo:
Recorder. Okay. And violin. I teach her violin and I think she’s quite good, also with the rhythm, it’s very already… And she sings very, very in tune. She has already the hearing, it’s already in place, I think. But then, what we… What she… Already, the instrument now, she’s young, so we teach her what we know, but then, maybe later, she will choose some other instrument, but we try already to… And to make them listen a lot of music too, classical and jazz. That’s… We try to give all we can now to them to then be able to be musician, professional or not, that’s what they will choose. But we try to give them all the possibility to already have a good hearing and then we see what happens.
Leah Roseman:
Eva, there’s two more things I’m curious about.
Eva Slongo:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
One is your process of composition, how you go about writing too.
Eva Slongo:
There are different processing, but on my first… I already released an EP in 2013 and an album in 2016. And for these two, I really composed with harmonic instrument, like piano or guitar. I don’t really play piano or guitar, but I know the chords and then singing and doing chords. I compose really like that.
Eva Slongo:
But then, for my new album now that will go out soon, I compose more on the violin because I tried to… not to inspire myself from all the elements of classical music I had into myself too and then to mix it with the jazz. And so, yes. Really, like the compositions I made before I really do… Yes, I did it on the violin and voice. And then I composed a cadence or so on the violin. But, if I remember good, this piece, first, I compose it like a (singing) and then I learned chop and that became (singing). Then it changed a little bit better.
Eva Slongo:
And then… What did I do? Yes. There are other compositions. Yeah, I… Just like that with violin and voice. The last album, mostly like that, but a little also… There are two songs, one I compose with the chords of guitar and voice and one… another with piano. There is one we compose when my daughter was… It’s a “berceuse”, you know?
Leah Roseman:
Lullaby.
Eva Slongo:
Yes, lullaby that we composed, together with my husband, for my daughter. And then I put some jazz chords on the piano on this lullaby.
Leah Roseman:
I can’t wait to hear your a new album. So I just wanted to thank you for agreeing to speak to me today and playing so beautifully.
Eva Slongo:
Thank you.