About

When one thinks “West Coast Jazz,  it’s the big names like Chet Baker, Furgeson, Getz and other horn players that are credited as its dominant force. Be-bop artists from the East Coast visited and left their mark but  to many, West Coast Jazz was devalued as lacking in be-bop’s sophisticated edge. Strings didn’t get the recognition they deserved  despite their major presence and Paul Nero was a major player. Unlike improvising artists Venuti and Grappelli Nero was  prolific composer, conductor and arranger who campaigned vigorously to highlight string performers and  the string jazz genre as the West Coast Jazz sound. Nero argued that a violin had a greater capacity to adapt to and reshape modern jazz than status quo critics/ and many musicians allowed. He proved his case by inserting jazz violin in both be bop and classical genres, developed and taught jazz technique for string players and pushed the musical envelope with his own recording of a jazz violin orchestra; Paul Nero and his Hi-Fi-ddles.

Paul Nero was among the first violinists of his time to fuse classical technique with jazz rhythms and be-bop frameworks while keeping his rich melodic persona.  Learn more about Nero’s music and read his deeply personal treatise on violin jazz and California’s West Coast Sound in America’s musical culture.

TIME AND PLACE: IMMIGRATION AND CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON NERO’S MUSIC    

Paul Nero's music and writings are all about breakthroughs from old constraints  to new freedoms. Nero and his family were Russian Jews who took a huge leap of faith in coming to America for a better more promising future. Acceptance never comes easily to the immigrant and so a nostalgia for old melody remained but the pull for American promise.  Along with Berlin and Gershwin, Paul Nero shared a heightened patriotism for American values and was intent to bring jazz violin  “to every home in America”.

MUSIC AND SOCIETY: NERO’S MUSICAL LEGACY FOR JAZZ STRINGS

For Paul Nero,  the social/cultural influences of time and place framed his musical productivity. Perhaps because he was an immigrant who embraced American life as filled with promise and all things modern, he was particularly attuned to the new technologies and cultures of  popular music recordings and broadcasts.  Music his lifeline to belong in a new country and fellow musicians were his community.  For Americans, postwar  1940’s and 1950’s music of America reflected both joy and the global sigh of relief from wartime and hard economic strife. These were also the decades of breaking boundaries; a new fascination with science, technology and innovation.  78rpm shellac records were replaced by the larger pliant vinyl 33’s. The higher quality sounds of recorded music were now called High Fidelity.  Record labels reflected the explorer’s realm with titles of “Vanguard” and “Verve”.  Not coincidentally, Nero’s first LP (long playing) album was entitled Paul Nero and His HiFi-ddles.

Nero spoke passionately about the violin’s ability to enhance modern music genres. 

Site ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Loving gratitude to the Paul Nero Family, wife Catheryn, daughter Anita and son Daniel for their time and generosity in sharing the Paul Nero Estate: the music and their memories of husband and father. We spent many hours on interviews, searching through papers, documents, manuscripts and recordings. The memories Catheryn shared were so numerous and sharp which helped me to connect the dots and dates on Nero’s early life in New York, at Curtis and then L.A. Anita and Dan were invaluable treasure hunters who kept Paul Nero’s manuscripts, correspondence and records in pristine condition.