In what was already shaping up to be a stellar career, Regina Carter hit a new high in 2001 when she became the first jazz musician invited to Genoa to play the legendary Paganini violin, known as the Cannon. After this first encounter –in which she was to play only classical repertoire and not (heavens no!) “real” jazz, she returned to Italy in late 2002 with her quintet to record “Paganini: After the Dream,” a set of classically rooted music with not-so-subtle jazz elements. Once more in November she played the Cannon, this time at Alice Tully Hall in New York. “By the third time it was more comfortable,” she noted, despite the police escort and security that probably rivaled that assigned to Air Force One.

For obvious reasons, the Cannon is not part of Regina Carter’s current tour, but nearly all of the other elements were with her on stage at Ted Mann Auditorium in Minneapolis last Thursday night, the final—and most interesting—concert of the Northrop Jazz Season. With pianist David Budway, bassist Chris Lightcap, drummer Alvester Garnett , and percussionist Maya Casales, Carter presented a full 90+ minute set that easily convinced this audience that the violin is indeed a jazz instrument, and a most swinging and versatile one when in such creative hands.

Although she did not start out studying classical violin, ultimately Carter studied both classical and African American Music and absorbed a wide range of influences from R & B to East Indian to Latin, performing with an equally diverse range of musicians from Aretha Franklin to Danilo Perez to the Minnesota Orchestra. But the most challenging and perhaps satisfying project has been the music which has grown from that initial experience in Genoa, the music that provided the core of her quintet’s performance here.