Ever since music has been recorded a succession of jazz musicians have been tempted to don a bow tie and try a classical composition or two on for size, and a number of classical artists have loosened theirs and had a crack at some jazz. A few have made a reasonable fist of it but in general it has not really worked. It’s hard for a disciplined and intellectually rigorous classical musician to swing or for a jazz artist to play any composition without imbuing it with his or her own interpretation. But for the first time in a long time a genuine classical virtuoso has successfully crossed the divide.

Nigel Kennedy was always something of a maverick, with an avowed ambition to take the stuffiness out of classical performance. From his earliest days as the first scholarship pupil at the Menuhin School of Music, through his studies at the Juilliard School in New York, Kennedy has listened to and had an appreciation of jazz. He had played in informal student jazz groups while still at the Menuhin and when Stephane Grappelli lectured there Kennedy asked to bring his fiddle. As Nigel hoped, he and Grappelli played together and it distilled a sense of joy in the young pupil that is still at the centre of every concert he performs today. From that moment onward Kennedy viewed performing within a wider context than the traditions of the classics.

A second pivotal moment came during his time at Juilliard. Grappelli was due to perform at Carnegie Hall and invited Nigel to join him on stage. The school authorities had constantly warned that performing jazz would destroy his classical opportunities but the excitement of jazz seduced him and he duly turned up. Days later Kennedy was told classical record executives had been in the audience and he had destroyed his classical recording prospects. So much for school careers advice. Nigel Kennedy is a man of extraordinary strengths and he has since brought his free spirit to classical music, destroying many of the traditional barriers whilst, at the same time, kept his passion for jazz blazing through occasional performances with figures such as pianists Jimmy Rowles and Ellis Larkins, singers such as Helen Humes and Bobby McFerrin, saxophonist Zoot Sims as well as his own tours with European musicians.

In 1992 he took a sabbatical from performing for five years, although he continued to record, and during this time he decamped to Poland where he is now based with his wife Agnieska and young son. Since his return to the international stage he has included jazz and other music in his schedule. In 2005 he recorded The Blue Note Sessions with a first rate jazz ensemble of established stars. In a first for EMI, with whom Kennedy has been with from the beginning of his career, a classical star has recorded for the historic Blue Note label, a singular occurrence unlikely to be repeated for anyone else. So how does this classical virtuoso fare in the jazz stakes?

As a matter of fact, very well indeed. A combination of a surprisingly flowing style and some excellent ensemble playing on a mix of group original compositions and standards has provided and excellent showcase for Kennedy to demonstrate a fine jazz sensibility, with an equally good feel for ballad and blues, and a notable empathy with his equally illustrious collaborators. Whether an accomplished classical musician can maintain the highest standards in parallel musical genres is an open question but on this showing anytime he wants to swap his bow tie for the jazz bow there is another great career waiting for him.

None available at present.

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