Jean-Luc Ponty’s Humbling Experience

Even to some of Jean-Luc Ponty’s longtime admirers, the Parisian-born violinist has been in a stylistic rut since the mid- to late-’80s when his jazz-fusion efforts began to lose punch.

But “Tchokola”--his latest release on Epic Records--changes that.

In the 10-song collection, the Los Angeles-based Ponty takes the brazen step--at least for him--of playing contemporary West African music with an all-African band.

Ponty will perform material from the album when he appears tonight at the Universal Amphitheatre, heading a seven-piece band that features five musicians from the album.

The violinist, who listened to tribal African music as a youngster, became so intrigued with some modern West African recordings last year that he began to play along with the records.

“I hadn’t done that in years,” he says. “I was inspired.”

In fact, he was inspired enough to call an associate, African composer and musician Wally Badarou, who set up jam sessions for Ponty in Paris with musicians from the Cameroons, Nigeria, Mali and Senegal. These informal gatherings ultimately led to “Tchokola,” which was recorded in the City of Lights in February.

This project was a challenge for Ponty, a classically trained musician, who says he thought he knew it all musically. But the complex African rhythms really threw him.

“It was a very humbling experience,” he says. “I have played a lot of intricate music, but these complex rhythms overlay each other and they go on forever, like a groove. I had to ask the players where “one” was, and I’d get different answers, because some of this music doesn’t have a downbeat. It’s not enough to know the rhythms, you have to feel them.”

Thinking it would be “sad if this experience stopped with the recording,” Ponty decided to play music from the album on a tour of Europe and the United States.

After the U.S. tour, which concludes this month with dates in Florida, Ponty says he’ll go back to his jazz/fusion band and the material familiar to most of his fans. But he doesn’t think he’ll forget what’s happened this year.

“It’s been such an incredible experience, such a discovery, that it might leave a rhythmic mark on my future projects,” he says.