The French-born violinist Jean-Luc Ponty bridged the old jazz styles of Stephane Grappelli and Joe Venuti and contemporary stylists such as the late Noel Pointer and Regina Carter. He was schooled in the classics, played with Frank Zappa in the 1960s and with the Mahavishnu Orchestra and George Duke in the '70s. Although his violin and his electrified violectra were staples in the fusion era, his musicality was solidly based in the classics and jazz, as evidenced here by his hornlike phrasing on "Bowing-Bowing" with keyboardist Patrice Rushen and his Cajun intro on "Aurora, Part II." He takes a page from Philip Glass's minimalist riffs on "Mirage," the spacy "Cosmic Messenger," and "No Stings Attached," a fiery live date. There's even a New Age presence with guitarist Joaquin Lievano on "A Taste for Passion." At the end of the day, though, The Very Best of shows abundantly that Ponty could rock out with the best of them. Check out "Infinite Pursuit," a sonic twin to the Police's "Synchronicity," and you'll hear a musician who makes electronics swing in any idiom. --Eugene Holley Jr.