on prince's great album expectations violin player vanesa mae is playing.
how did they hook up?
was this ever disscused on org???
if prince was working with britney there would be milion topics with bilion replies.
but when he is working with real musicians no interst on org at all.

Being a traditionally raised classical violinist, Vanessa-Mae isn't trained to improvise. She had a scary experience of this when she was invited to play with Prince on his experimental jazz album 'Xpectations.'

Vanessa-Mae told in an interview that she was unpleasantly surprise dwhen she found out that there were no scores of the music. Her pre-played and recorded violin parts were added to the results of the other musicians. She just doesn't think in improvising music. This was end 2002.

Perhaps she is now training herself to learn to improvise.

thebanishedone said:

Also as a classically trained violinist, I know how incredibly hard it is to improvise in jazz style, especially on a more modern sounding album like Xpectation.

I don't know how they hooked up, but I was surprised to hear a violin prominently in a Prince album. With that said, I wish he hired a more superior improviser, say, Jean-Luc Ponty. Vanessa Mae is a pretty good violinist, but her fame is due to her appearance and style.

And, if Prince worked with Britney I'd be pissed.

i still love her contributions to the album! prince should use
violins more often.

the electric violin solo on Halucination Rain is just

'Xpectation' could be the most underrated Prince album of all.

If this were released on Blue Note, and had the right promotion, Prince would have gotten accolades from the jazz fusion world.

I keep thinking that this album should re-released in physical form.

I can listen 2 that album constantly, and never get tired of listening 2 it.

Yes, the violin was perfect and beautiful in the music.

Peace.
[Edited 9/29/06 11:04am]

I understand Jam & Lewis used Vanessa on the janet record and they referred her to Prince when he wanted a violinist.

savoirfaire said:

As one who has recently (past 4 years) started playing jazz violin seriously, I concur about the difficulty. Vannesa Mae certainly sounded stilted when it came to the improvised parts. But her playing overall was gorgeous. However, someone like Regina Carter would have funked it up right along with P and Candy.
[Edited 9/29/06 18:51pm]

thebanishedone said:

Scary?

Can you post interview; was she nervous?

i dont have link for interview,i saw it on her fan sites

Wow not knowing how to improvise is a scary thought....