Sam Bardfeld

Sam Bardfeld is a violinist, composer, and arranger. He is a member of The Jazz Passengers and a frequent collaborator of Bruce Springsteen's. He has worked as a sideman with a long list of jazz, pop, folk, and experimental acts including Elvis Costello, John Zorn, Calexico, Anthony Braxton, Henry Butler, Kris Davis, Savion Glover, Debbie Harry, John Cale, Steven Bernstein, The String Trio of NY, The Red Clay Ramblers, Nancy Sinatra, Willie Colon, Dar Williams, Johnny Pacheco, and The Soldier String Quartet among others.

Sam studied violin technique with Gerald Beal and Joey Corpus, improvisation with Bill Barron, George Garzone and Richie Beirach and counterpoint with Paul Caputo. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1990 where he studied music, anthropology and history. In 1991 he received a year-long Ford Foundation grant to study ethnomusicology at Wesleyan. Bardfeld is an ambassador for Schertler pick-ups and endorses Acoustic Image amplifiers.

In the 1990’s, Sam’s immersion in NYC’s fertile Salsa and Latin Jazz scene led to writing a book, Latin Violin (Hal Leonard, 2002), considered to be the authoritative work on the Afro-Cuban violin tradition. He is also an instructor of jazz violin at the New School jazz program in NYC.