Todd Reynolds



Violin on “Leave Me Alone”. With his chamber-jazz quartet, Ethel, he’s opening the spring and summer of 2005 tour for Todd Rundgren and Joe Jackson. The world seems not to be quite enough for the ever-curious mind and mindblowingly active hands of Todd Reynolds, the hardest working violinist / composer / conductor / lecturer in showbiz, hailed by critics as New York’s reigning classical/jazz violinist. He just seems to be everywhere and do everything, making it difficult to believe there is only one of him. For Reynolds, it is not a matter of breaking musical boundaries or bending genres—to him, there are simply no borders. He is a true 21st Century artist.

ER: I wanted a guy who would be equally adept at classical and ragtime jazz. Everyone we asked said Todd was the guy for us. We were warned that he’s very busy and we’d be very lucky to get him. The schwartz was with us. Todd squeezed us in and...wow, did that track come alive. He played with humor, precision, inventiveness and swing. I had thought we’d need to overdub a couple of spots where I’d written two parts for the violin. Todd just whizzed through those sections, hitting the double stops perfectly. When he was done, I told him that he was a cross between Stephan Grappelli and Jascha Heifetz. “I studied with Heifetz,” he mentioned. Then he was off to his grand tour as my jaw dropped.

We didn’t know who would play clarinet “underneath” Todd’s nuanced
performance. Donnie (the husband) had been teaching clarinet to 5th
and 6th graders at PS29 in the South Bronx. He happened to have a
clarinet in the house and offered to try the part. Skilled baritone and
bass sax player, veteran of many sessions, he had never recorded
on clarinet. It was only a teaching instrument to him. We set him and
his student instrument up in front of the mike and he played down
that arrangement like a champ, complimenting Todd’s licks. My hero.

www.toddreynolds.com



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