Polly Bradfield is an American violinist from the New York City free improvisation scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
I studied jazz in college after hearing Cecil Taylor I started developing a style of improvisation on the piano, playing with many different musicians and performing occasionally.
When I met Eugene Chadbourne and John Zorn on moving to New York, I quit playing the piano and concentrated on the violin.
The album contains more silence than sawing, though; her scrapes, scratches, plunks, and occasional notes on the violin are often separated by long stretches of it.
(from an interview by Dan Warburton [3]) "Polly Bradfield’s solo playing was quite different -- harder, less lyrical and treading a tightrope between controlled and contrived.
I thought she had a lot of bottle actually, because she’s chosen a difficult path; her playing is austere and uncompromising, a little stiff; she takes chances; her use of silence is similar to John Zorn’s, though her humour’s dryer (it’s there though).
(from his liner notes to School) "Boxes of this brilliant fiddle outing, one of the best records of its kind, were reputedly discarded by Bradfield, having gone unsold for years.
Knotty, intense, nuanced little sounds by an important early associate of John Zorn and Eugene Chadbourne."