Moonshine and church music flowed plentifully in backcountry North Carolina in the early ‘70s when a teenaged Frank Kimbrough saw the Bill Evans Trio on television. Suddenly the link between the young pianist’s classical training and rock band elation became strikingly clear.

“It struck me right away—the perfect combination, the discipline of what I was doing in classical music, but the freedom I was doing with my little rock band. I didn’t feel like classical music was me. It wasn’t something I wanted to do with my life. I had fun playing with friends, playing rock tunes, picking tunes off the radio… This was the perfect combination of these things. It took a couple years for that one little thing to sink in.”

Eventually it did and Kimbrough set off for the jazz life and survived the bumpy road. He failed a music class at Appalachia State University for “having the audacity” to bring an Evans transcript into a jury, though he stunned his theory professor for being the only person in the school’s history to ace the ear training test. Two years later he found himself in Washington DC recording a demo tape in Shirley Horn’s living room. “Her first words to me were something like ‘Chile you sound just like Wynton Kelly.’ And we became friends,” Kimbrough recalled.

At age 25 the pianist landed in New York and met one of his heroes, Paul Bley, at Danceteria. Soon Kimbrough was hanging out with the older pianist, absorbing vast amounts of knowledge. “I’d sit in a room with him and just listen to him talk for a couple hours and I’d go home and take notes,” he said. “It was just so heavy. He’s talking about ‘play red, play fast, play slow, play blue, play this, but don’t do that.’”

Nearly 25 years later Kimbrough got the chance to play with Bley. This past May the two shared the stage at Merkin Hall. Though his collection contains 130 Bley records, he didn’t listen to any of them for six months before the gig. In fact he didn’t even have a plan for the concert.

“I felt like I was stepping into an elevator shaft,” he said. “It was an elevator shaft that I kind of knew but there was nothing safe about it. I’ve been playing the piano for 45 years. He’s been playing the piano for close to 70. So with my experience and his experience added up, how bad could it be?”

One bit of advice taken from all those hours listening was that rehearsals are a waste of time. Of course with groups he plays in like bandleader Maria Schneider’s or bassist Ben Allison’s, where the music is complex and composed, rehearsals are vital. But with a duo, a trio or playing solo, when the music’s success comes from high levels of spontaneity, he’d rather not waste that initial essence.

“I usually don’t touch the instrument unless I’m working,” he explained. “That way, every time you sit down to play, it’s important. You never get into a situation where you’re just sleepwalking through the gig. Music should be a living, breathing thing. Maybe you put yourself into a situation sometimes where you might be terrified. You might be one millimeter from failure. That’s alright because in those situations you’re very present.”

Kimbrough played solo piano at The Village Corner on Bleeker Street for five years. Trudging around the neighborhood in the ‘80s he encountered bored, alcoholic pianists at every turn. “They would drink all night and play the same tunes,” he recalled. “I vowed never to do that.” Kimbrough learned a new tune every night by favorites like Annette Peacock or Herbie Nichols. He learned hundreds of new tunes, developing discipline, a fierce devotion to spontaneity and an improvisational prowess apparent in each of the 14 albums released as a leader, including his most recent disc Play (Palmetto, 2006).