L.A.'s new music scene has always been small but pugnacious, since its beginnings in the 1960s, pioneered by the likes of John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Horace Tapscott and others.  Since then, college jazz programs and the promise of recording studio work has drawn musicians inclined to play left-of-center. It's a bit curious, though, that L.A.'s adventurous music pool has just a few violinists.  The two who have the highest profiles are Jeff Gauthier and Harry Scorzo.  Roughly the same age-Gauthier is 48 and Scorzo is 50-their stories contrast and complement each other in interesting ways.  Gauthier grew up in West L.A. and attended Beverly Hills High.  Scorzo was born in Chicago.  From the age of six he lived in Bell, a city with a heavy Spanish-speaking population, just southeast of Downtown L.A.  Each began with the violin in grade school and stayed with it through college and into the working world.  Each has grounding in contemporary classical and jazz, rock and improvised music.  Yet they've both participated in vastly different musics-Gauthier in fusion and rock, Scorzo in disco and various Latin musics.  Each has a personal vision of what new music is, what it's made of and how it's supposed to function.  You might say they went to different schools together. Gauthier and Scorzo both benefited from the music programs that were prevalent in Southern California schools in the '60s and '70s.  Virtually any kid who wanted to play music had access to instruction and an affordable instrument.  (This was a far cry from the current reality where public school music programs fight for their lives, year-in and year-out, existing on bake sales and charity.)  Gauthier's first violin teacher was an aunt who played and taught.  His second teacher was Armand Roth, first violinist in the L.A. Philharmonic.  "He didn't just teach the violin," Gauthier recalls, "he taught music."  In junior high school, Gauthier responded to the rock music he heard around him (Jimi Hendrix, Cream) and picked up the electric guitar.  A stint in a celebrated all-city jazz group (the Apex Jazz Band, which convened at Dorsey High) immersed Gauthier in jazz.  He also jammed frequently with a neighbor, drummer Scott Colomby, nephew of Blood, Sweat and Tears drummer Bobby Colomby. Although Scorzo wanted to play piano, a teacher handed him a violin in the third grade.  The easy-going youngster didn't fight it.  "I was happy just to be there," says Scorzo.  "The instrument was amorphously nondescript."  While the classical repertory was taught, Scorzo was first attracted to jazz through a book.  "I read a book by Howard Fast," states Scorzo. "In it, he said that contemporary classical music had lost touch with the people and that improvisation was composing on your feet.  That really excited me." Scorzo also had subliminal encouragement at home.  "My dad is from the South Side of Chicago and he was the only white guy in his graduating class.  There was always a lot of black music in my home.  So I had my Italian culture but also a heavy dose of black culture." The jazz that Gauthier was attracted to was the cutting edge music of the day: Miles Davis, circa Bitch's Brew, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Herbie Hancock's Crossings band.  The violinists he admired were Michael White ("Very primal, earthy," says Gauthier), Don 'Sugarcane' Harris and, most importantly, Jean Luc Ponty.  "I loved his World Pacific stuff," confesses Gauthier, "like King Kong and Sunday Walk.  It was what I thought a violinist should be playing like." Cal Arts immersed Gauthier in contemporary classical music and the advanced practices of theory, harmony and counterpoint. "Musically," Scorzo states with pride, "I come from East L.A., and all that implies."  He studied at East L.A. College and Immaculate Heart Conservatory, with private studies in violin, composition and conducting but the working class area he lived in found Scorzo working in Mexican bands and Mexican rock groups. Eastside Connection was one such band.  Its fame seldom moved beyond the barrio but Scorzo produced "So Right For Me" (Rampart Records, 1977) by the band, considered a disco classic in some circles. Scorzo began working in the recording studios in the late '70s, at the end of a Golden Age.  "The studios were going practically around the clock then," he muses, "and L.A. had probably the finest collection of string players in the world at that time."  Scorzo still makes his living playing for movie and television soundtracks, radio jingles and for artists like Celine Dion and Snoop Doggy Dog.  He's also called upon to compose film cues and music for TV shows. Gauthier's academy was the close musical friends he found on the Westside.  Twin brothers Nels and Alex Cline (guitar and drums, respectively) remain his best friends today. They all exchanged and learned from each other but their big collective influence was the musical omnivore Eric von Essen.  Composer, bassist, pianist, and harmonica player, von Essen lived music and was able to impart it to those around him. "Eric was my most important teacher after Cal Arts," says Gauthier.  "He had a way of getting in touch with what's inside the music and how to express it."  They formed Quartet Music, an acoustic collective that drew from classical music, folk and jazz.  It was an intense ten-year  ('80-'90) experience that pushed the four players to the point where the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.  "It was a special convergence of personalities and talents." Gauthier and Scorzo, like almost all avant gardists in L.A., have intersected with reedman and composer Vinny Golia.  Golia's occasional Large Ensemble is a meeting place for disparate players from different parts of the city and with different backgrounds.  Golia's example of a self-owned record label that documents local new music-9 Winds--was a template for Gauthier's Cryptogramophone label.   The Music of Eric von Essen Volumes I-III, amounts to an anthology of the best under-50 players in L.A.  Conversely, Scorzo's virtuosity moved Golia to write extensively for strings.  "Harry took all that Coltrane stuff," says Golia, "and transferred it to the violin."  "I choose to live more in the world of improvisation these days," says Gauthier.  "The context is mostly music that I write, made up of all the people who move me: Keith Jarrett, Penderecki, Hendrix, Arvo Pärt, Cream, Miles."  Scorzo says, "What excites me now is to do my own music or music by people that I know." That includes Scorzo's trio Viophonic ("pan-diatonic stuff") and drummer Chris Garcia's Quartetto Nuevo, a world music band.  You might say that Gauthier and Scorzo walk different sides of the same street.

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