Pulling Right Strings : Music: Mark O’Connor imposed on a diverse group of violinists--from Charlie Daniels to Pinchas Zukerman--for his new album, ‘Heroes.’

Think of improvisation, and the violin is not exactly the first instrument that comes to mind. The saxophone, the trumpet, the piano, sure. But the violin? Not a chance.

Mark O’Connor is out to change that perception. The 32-year-old Nashville-based musician has just released a remarkable new album, “Heroes,” which makes a convincing case for the violin as one of the most eclectic improvising instruments of the 20th Century.

“I started out with a fairly simple goal in mind,” explains the slender, mustachioed O’Connor, who bears a passing resemblance to singer Michael Franks. “I wanted to put together an album in which I could get a chance to play with all the guys who were--and still are--my musical heroes.”

Not a bad idea, if not, at first blush, all that unusual. But a quick glance at the list of O’Connor’s “heroes” reveals a lineup that places the violin (or fiddle--O’Connor generally uses the labels interchangeably) in an entirely new perspective. Starting with a Jean-Luc Ponty session, O’Connor moves through a series of musical jams and traditional revivals with, among others, Stephane Grappelli, L. Shankar, Charlie Daniels, Johnny Gimble, Doug Kershaw, Kenny Baker and Pinchas Zukerman.

*

At the top of the list, and the first “hero” approached by O’Connor, was Grappelli, the legendary French jazz violinist, now 85 years old. O’Connor had actually performed with Grappelli a decade ago during a concert tour with mandolinist David Grisman. Even so, the thought of working in the studio with one of the two or three progenitors of the jazz violin was an awesome experience.

“The only thing I was sure of,” O’Connor recalls, “was that I wanted to do the tune with him that I most love to hear him play: ‘This Can’t Be Love.’ When I asked him, he just nodded, and we dug into it. What happened next was a kind of pattern that seemed to be repeated when I played with each of these great violinists.

“It was like Grappelli was the master and I was the student. As we continued to play, I followed his lead, then began to take off on my own, but within his style. By the time we finished, it was like we were on an equal level. Then Grappelli turned to me and said, ‘OK, what do we do next?’ And I said, ‘Let’s do my next favorite tune--”Ain’t Misbehavin’.” ’ “

The only missing violin hero on the list was Joe Venuti, who died in 1978. Even so, O’Connor considered using a rare audiotape recorded when--at the age of 14--he jammed with Venuti in a Chicago club.

“It started out as one of Joe’s practical jokes,” says O’Connor. “I’d gone up to get him to autograph my violin when somebody in the audience--probably thinking I looked like a country boy--asked Joe to play ‘Turkey in the Straw.’ He said he didn’t know it, but that this kid probably did. I was scared, but I knew I had to go through with it; you just don’t turn down the chance to play with Joe Venuti.

*

“He kicked off something that wasn’t ‘Turkey in the Straw,’ but it had some kind of country groove, so I started playing. After a while, I started jamming around on the chords. That’s when Joe decided to test me a little, first by having the band modulate through two or three different keys, and then by picking up the tempo. I just sort of went with it, so Joe started playing along, doing double shuffling and stuff, and we finally ended up together. Well, the audience went nuts, and I’ve got it all on tape. But the sound and the feedback are so bad that I couldn’t put it on the album--much as I wanted to.”

Even without Venuti, the list is an impressive one.

“It’s quite a lineup, isn’t it?” O’Connor says with a chuckle. “In fact, when I described this project to people, they’d usually say, ‘Oh, how can that work? How can you put all that different stuff on one album?’ And I’d say, ‘No, no, there’s this thread drawn through it--this thread that’s holding the whole thing together.’ ”

The thread, according to O’Connor, is a kind of musical lineage that touches not only the jazz of Grappelli, Ponty and Venuti, but also the Texas style fiddling of Benny Thomasson, the bluegrass of Baker and Bill Monroe, and the Cajun of Kershaw.

Yet another product of Seattle’s growing list of important musicians, O’Connor came to his instrument at an early age. Starting on guitar, he turned to the violin after hearing Kershaw perform with Johnny Cash (who was his first musical idol). Before he had played the instrument for less than a year, O’Connor was winning national fiddle contests. In the next few years, his imaginative stretching of traditional styles made him a consistent contest winner. By the age of 14, he was recording with Thomasson (his most influential teacher and mentor).

It is O’Connor’s astonishing improvisational versatility that makes “Heroes” such a unique outing. His ability to groove with Grappelli, rock with Ponty, swing with Gimble and Byron Berline, soar through the achingly sentimental lines of “Ashokan Farewell” with Zukerman and probe the outer limits of melodic improvisation with Shankar are brilliant extensions of what writer Whitney Balliett once characterized--in describing jazz--as the “sound of surprise.”

O’Connor, who also recently debuted his first major work for orchestra--the Fiddle Concerto for Violin and Orchestra--with the Santa Fe Symphony, modestly attributes his skills to the opportunities he has had “to hear and assimilate all these different kinds of music.”

“Most of the older players among my heroes couldn’t have been influenced the way I was,” he explains, “because the eras they grew up were much more musically isolated, while I’ve had every chance to hear anything I wanted. And that, more than anything, explains how I was able to make this recording, and why I feel so fortunate to have been able to do so.”