Grappelli’s Still Moving Like a Gypsy : Tour: The man known as the <i> grandseigneur </i> of jazz violin is in the middle of a U.S. trip that stops in Orange County tonight.

What’s the best song to describe Stephane Grappelli at age 83? “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”? “Old Rockin’ Chair’s Got Me”?

“On the Road Again” is more like it. The man known as the grandseigneur of jazz violin is in the middle of a monthlong U.S. tour that stops at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano tonight and the Strand in Redondo Beach on Sunday.

“I don’t move as much as I used to do,” Grappelli said in a hurried phone conversation before a performance in Chicago earlier this week, after apologizing for his difficulties with English (though he actually speaks the language well, with an almost musical accent). “This afternoon I saw the fabulous art museum here in Chicago. Marvelous! I had a very great time there. That was some walking. I like it. I like to travel. Like a gypsy, I like to move,” said Grappelli, who is accompanied on this tour by guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli and bassist Jon Burr.

Grappelli’s gypsy connections go back to 1934 when he met the late Django Reinhardt, the revered Gypsy guitarist, backstage in Paris (“Everything happens in Paris,” he said). The two formed the now-famous Quintet du Hot Club de France, named for the Parisian nightclub where the group premiered. In addition to Grappelli and Reinhardt, the all-string ensemble included two rhythm guitarists and a bassist, creating a warm, percussion-less blend that has become identified as uniquely European.

Though the inspiration for this sound has often been credited to the duo of Joe Venuti and guitarist Eddie Lang, who began playing together in the ‘20s, or the influence of Missouri-born violinist Eddie South, who toured Europe in the late ‘20s (and again in the late ‘30s), Grappelli denies it.

“No, I never copied anybody,” he said. “I played with South in 1937, but didn’t know him before. When I heard him I realized what a great artist he was, what an improviser. And Joe Venuti. Those were the only two violinists I knew well before (World War II).”

The reason behind the all-string instrumentation was a matter of preference--and a need to be heard.

“I wanted it that way,” Grappelli explained. “I wanted all string instruments to play jazz without a microphone, not like today. There was no electric (amplification) in back of us, and the violin would not be heard very well” in a group with horns and drums.

Grappelli and Reinhardt continued to play the Hot Club de France until 1939, and worked together frequently until the guitarist’s death in 1953. The violinist continues to play some of the music he wrote with Reinhardt, including the guitarist’s well-known tune “Nuage.” “That I must do,” he said. “The people like it.”

Grappelli, who began his career playing in the streets of Paris, has faced some tough audiences over the years. His American debut came in 1969 at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. That was the year that rock fans, tired of waiting for Sly & the Family Stone to take the stage, rioted, changing the outdoor festival’s format forever.

“No, that was no trouble to me,” Grappelli recalled. “But I remember it was raining, and the public was fantastic to stay in the rain.”

His most difficult performance probably came with keyboardist George Shearing in London during the Blitz. “We were playing a theater, and Beryl Davis, the singer, was with us. In England at that time there were musicians everywhere. Sometime in the middle, a bomb dropped. Beryl was singing ‘As Time Goes By,’ and the bomb dropped. We managed to get out of that. We were lucky.”

Since the war, Grappelli has worked with everyone from Joe Pass and Phil Woods to such greats of the classical realm as Yehudi Menuhin and Yo-Yo Ma. He’s shown a special interest in younger violinists, encouraging the careers of such artists as L. Subramaniam and fellow-Frenchman Didier Lockwood. In the ‘70s, Grappelli symbolically gave a violin to Jean-Luc Ponty, marking him as the instrument’s next great talent, a tradition that began in 1937 when violinist and band leader Michel Warlop passed one of his instruments to Grappelli.

In turn, the younger musicians have honored him. “In France for my 80th birthday, there was a big show with 10 violinists, 10 young people with me and my friend Svend Asmussen,” a Danish violinist who is 75. “It was very flattering.”

What’s the best song to describe Stephane Grappelli at 83? How about “Young at Heart”?

Stephane Grappelli plays tonight at 9 at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Tickets: $26.50. Information: (714) 496-8930.