Jeff Gauthier

Composer, producer, and improvising violinist Jeff Gauthier grew up in West L.A., where he first picked up a violin while he was still in grade school. Gauthier's first teacher on the instrument was his aunt, and in time he began studying the instrument with Armand Roth, who held the first violin chair with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In middle school Gauthier fell under the spell of improvising hard rock artists like Jimi Hendrix and the British trio Cream, which in turn led him to the jazz fusion of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew era. Following high school (he attended Beverly Hills High), Gauthier studied violin and music at the California Institute of Arts.

His career as a professional musician has been rich and varied, and he has worked with edgy artists like John Cale, Vinny Golia, Alex Cline, and Yusef Lateef as well as with the Milwaukee Symphony, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Long Beach Symphony. His heart remains with improvisation and jazz, however, and he fronts his own group, the Jeff Gauthier Goatette, and was a founder and member of Quartet Music. He also helped found the Nine Winds and Delos record labels, and in 1998, the Cryptogramophone imprint, perhaps the premier forward-thinking jazz label on the scene. Gauthier has won numerous awards, including a pair of NEA grants, and has contributed to countless film and television show soundtracks, perhaps most notably to the Star Trek dynasty. Among his albums are 1993's Internal Memo and The Present, both on Nine Winds, and 2002's Mask and 2006's One and the Same, both on Cryptogramphone. A third album on the Cryptogramphone imprint, House of Return, appeared in 2008. ~ Steve Leggett