Jim Nolet is a recording artist, performer and educator known internationally as a composer and improviser in world and jazz idioms. He began his study of classical violin at age 7, and by age 13 had begun improvising and playing professionally while continuing his classical studies. His later training extended from the Juilliard School to Cornish Institute of the Arts, where he studied privately with master bassist Gary Peacock. Nolet's jazz identity took shape in the workshops, studios and clubs of Manhattan, where his work in mainstream, bop and Latin music circles ensured development of a jazz foundation that is both solid and diverse.
Nolet has performed and presented his works at such venues as Lincoln Center in New York, Queen Elizabeth Hall in Prague, and Club Bird in Japan. He has also performed, recorded and toured throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, Latin America and Canada; with such jazz notables as Tim Hagans, David Murray, John Purcell, Hilton Ruiz, John Hicks, Tim Hagans, Joanne Brackeen, Hamiet Bluiett, Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, and others.
Nolet's current release, "Arco Voz" features Brazil's finest singers and percussionists including Monica Salmaso, Brazil's latest vocal sensation. His previous releases "Syzygy" (Cathexis 93-0006) and "With You" (KFW 152), a solo discography of which has been awarded "Best CD" and "Jazz Pick of the Year" by Jazziz and Pulse Magazine features notables such as saxophonist David Murray, bassist Bradley Jones of Ornette Coleman's "Prime Time," Blue Note artist Tim Hagans and Arturo O'Farrill. DownBeat cited Nolet in it's "International Critics Poll" for "Talent Deserving Wider Recognition", also awarding him a "4 ½ star" rating for composition. The Houston Press referred to "With You" as "what a debut disc, in a perfect world, should be"; while on "Syzygy" DownBeat puts Nolet next to the Giants of Jazz, "Nolet slaloms through Coltrane's "Countdown" like a downhill champion."
Collaborating with Brazilian artist Rodrigo Rodrigues, Nolet founded and began working the band, "Arco Voz" in Brazil. They will premier their new CD with a Cathexis Records world tour in 2001.
"Jim Nolet has the agility and dramatic coherence of straightforward jazz."
-- Jon Pareles, The New York Times
"...traditional jazz with a combination of grace, wit, and nerve."
-- The Washington Post
Jazz Pick: "Jim Nolet:...ears will be opened, minds will be expanded and souls will be touched: Make them yours."
-- LA Weekly
"Nolet is the unquestioned leader, but it's still an ensemble gig. The interplay hits Himalayan heights with it's unfettered exchange of ideas and Murray's clarinet bends with Nolet's violin like oil paints on Klee's palette...The tracks leave you reeling."
-- The Boston Phoenix
"As a composer and improviser, Nolet swings in a classically romantic way...holding form and content in high regard...fans are intrigued by the delicacy of his compositions"
-- The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"Nolet is a classically trained improviser with a stern visage that reflects his compositional prowess even at belies the musical humour he exhibits on "With You". Anyone only famaliar with Nolet as a prolific sideman should check it out, if not for it's sheer, wacked, beauty, then to see what a debut disc, in a perfect world, should be."
-- Houston Press
"Nolet displays passion, cunning eclecticism, and heretofore hidden depths and reaches...(he) chews off strong personalities from jazz history and recasts there messages through a personal, complex lyricism that is by turns, both sweet and pained."
-- The Stranger
