Mark O’Connor On Guitar- With Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas and Mark Schatz

A while back, I played a very memorable show up in Albany NY called the “Legends of the Jazz Violin.”  I want to say it was around 1997 or around that time. Lots of the greats were there including Mark O’Connor.

I got a chance to hang and  talk with Mark for a while back stage. Among other things,  I asked him if he was still playing  guitar…

He told me that he decided to quit playing guitar and just stick to violin- as he indicated it was bothering his hand.

The music world lost one of the great guitarist in Mark right then and there. And although he is probably the most talented violinist on the planet, his guitar playing was beyond superb, whether it be jazz, swing or bluegrass.

BTW, Mark won the Winfield Guitar Competition when he was 13 years old with the most awesome version of Dixie Breakdown that you ever heard. I have that on a record somewhere but I will search to see if there is a video (probably not). Perhaps someone made a digital recording of it that would be kind enough to share with us…