Detroit-born jazz violinist Regina Carter didn't set out to become the center of a musical controversy in Genoa, Italy; she only wanted to do something that to some classical-music purists amounted to heresy: to play jazz using the 1743 Guarneri del Gesù violin of noted Italian composer Niccolò Paganini.

"I had a friend who was from Genoa, and he came up with the idea. He knew that the mayor of Genoa was a huge jazz fan, but I don't think anyone could have predicted the controversy," Carter said in a recent telephone interview from her home in Bergen County, N.J.

"Finally, though, I was granted permission," she said. "It was a long process because the violin is technically owned by the whole city."

Being the first jazz musician to play Paganini's cherished violin was an event Carter described as "nerve-racking," made even more so by the violin itself.

"Every instrument has its own personality, and that violin was exceptionally difficult. For one thing, it's really big, with a huge body and a deep, rich sound almost like a viola. In fact, in Italy they call it 'The Cannon.'"

Playing that violin, she said, was like riding a wild horse, even when she used it in the Genoa recording sessions that eventually became her 2003 album "Paganini: After a Dream."

"It's a teasing instrument, and a lot of times you end up fighting with it," she said. "Playing that violin was not an easy experience but ... in a way, I can understand why Paganini fell so in love with it."

Finding her way

The cousin of famous jazz saxophonist James Carter, Regina committed herself to playing jazz while she was still a high school student in Michigan — a path that started causing problems for her once she was accepted into the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

"I only wound up staying there for two years, but it was a really intense experience. ... I did end up studying with some great teachers ... but in retrospect, I don't really think the conservatory was ready for a jazz violinist.

"I had to make my own way," she said. "And that was hard, especially in such a different environment."

After leaving the conservatory, Carter joined the all-female jazz quintet Straight Ahead, which released three albums on the Atlantic label in the 1990s and even earned praise from jazz great Branford Marsalis. She struck out on her own in 1995, releasing a self-titled album on Atlantic. Carter has since recorded five more albums and performed with some of the greatest names in jazz, not to mention pop and country icons such as Billy Joel and Dolly Parton.

"I liked working with Dolly, in particular. I mean, how can you not like Dolly Parton? She's an absolutely tiny person, but she's one of the sweetest people you'd ever want to meet. She was doing a TV show and she needed a violinist to perform with her, and so she asked me ... and I can't think of another time when I've worked with such a nice, positive and supporting fellow artist."

Genius

In 2006, Carter received a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Fellows Program. By any measure, it was the achievement of a lifetime, and not just for the $500,000 award attached to it.

"The real reason that this award is so famous, I think, is because your name gets submitted in secret, and you can't know anything about it," Carter said. "They watch you over the course of three years, charting things like performances and community contributions, and then one day you just get a phone call."

On the morning Carter was selected — along with children's book author and illustrator David Macaulay, deep-sea explorer Edith Widder and stem-cell researcher Kevin Eggan, to name just a few — she was roused by a phone call that she first took for a prank.

"What would you think if someone called your house saying 'This is your money, you can do whatever you want with it?'" Carter said. "It took a little bit of convincing, but finally I began to understand how big this really was."

Though past winners have used the money to go abroad, to take a teaching sabbatical, to write a book — or even to put new siding on a house — Carter is using her award to take online music classes, purchase photographs, pay research-related travel expenses and conduct interviews on a piece she's writing about the area of Detroit where her mother grew up, a neighborhood known as Black Bottom.

Meanwhile, she's hard at work exploring an African-influenced jazz sound for her next album, several pieces of which she plans to play during a performance.

"At this point in my career, I'm trying to go after a softer, more acoustic sound," she said. "But I'm also exploring more world-based themes, using a bass player from Senegal, for example, or turning to instruments I've never used before, like a kora [an African stringed instrument made from a calabash gourd and stretched with cowhide] or a dulcimer.

"It's something quieter, maybe a little bit like African-influenced chamber music," she said. "And I'm so excited to see how folks are going to respond."

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