John Ettinger

With two fine CDs to his credit thus far on Ettinger Music, and a third one about to be released, the San Francisco Bay Area-based composer John Ettinger has quickly made his mark as a jazz violinist who is a torchbearer for the instrument's potential in improvised music. His first album, 2003's August Rain, was lauded by All About Jazz as "brilliant," with the leader, on violin and effects, singled out as "the secret" to the album's success: "[He] has a way of popping in and out at opportune times to build a melody out of a groove, establish a specific mood, or carry on a burst of lyricism." Likewise in a critique of his second CD, 2006's Kissinger in Space, the same jazz pub heralded Ettinger as "a distinctive and top-drawer new voice in the music" and the album "a new benchmark for creative jazz violin." DownBeat magazine called Kissinger "a fine sophomore release," and Cadence magazine called it "a great find." Indeed, Ettinger promises to be a key player to further explore the violin's sonic depth in jazz and improvised music.
A resident of the Bay Area since 1992, Ettinger has played an instrumental role in the fertile music environment there. He has performed and recorded with an array of noteworthy artists over the years, including two cuts as a "string section" with Honeycut (on DJ Shadow's Quannum Records); composer/clarinetist Beth Custer (on her CD Vinculum Symphony and the Hans Wendl-produced soundtrack to the 1929 Russian silent film My Grandmother); vocalist Percy Howard (Incidental Seductions with Living Colour's Vernon Reid, King Crimson's Trey Gunn and This Heat's Charles Hayward); the late alto saxophonist Calder Spanier (The Calder Project); Chicago-based saxophonist Scott Rosenberg (IE); singer Mark Growden (Inside Beneath Behind); and singer-songwriter Pete Forbes (The Gulf Between). Ettinger served as a co-founding member of several bands, including eclectic improv groups Overdriven Cultists (with Grassy Knoll members Dave Revelli and Jonathan Byerly); LBJ (with Lukas Ligeti and Brian Kane); San Francisco Electric String Trio (with Doug Carroll and Jim Hearon). and electric jazz-jam band Hurlo Thrumbo. He played and recorded with psychedelic punk band Clockbrains, and has also performed in various settings with The Scott Amendola Band, Damon Smith, Matt Ingalls, Andrew Borger, and Naut Humon and the Iso-Orchestra with Arto Lindsay and Eyvind Kang. Prior to moving to the Bay Area, Ettinger lived in Arizona, where he collaborated with several musicians, including Trio Discussions (with Rob Kaplan, and J. B. Smith), an improv group with whom he recorded an album produced by guitarist David Torn.
While in Arizona he also was a member of the Primavera String Quartet, Mariachi Continental Azteca, various community symphony orchestras, and a composer of music for Desert Dance Theatre, the Southwest's leading modern dance company. He played in over 50 musicals on either violin or bass. He was a professional bass player in Arizona through the 80's and early 90's until his move to San Francisco. In 1987 he earned a Bachelor of Music degree in jazz performance on violin from Arizona State University. John was born in Detroit, raised in Arizona, and eventually migrated to the San Francisco bay area where he now lives with his wife and two daughters.