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Alex Frank: Jeff Goldblum's Bassist on Swing and the Ray Brown Tradition

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Alex Frank grew up in the room while the music was being made. The son of an LA film composer, he was a kid at recording sessions who traded the clarinet for an upright the moment he heard Ray Brown . Now he's the musical director of Jeff Goldblum's jazz band and one of the most in-demand bassists working the drummerless-trio tradition that ran from Nat King Cole to Oscar Peterson. He joins host Mike Jones for a conversation about where that deep time and taste actually come from.

They get into the Australia tour with Goldblum, the thousands of hours it takes to make two strangers sound like they've played together for years, and the trio record Alex, Graham Dechter, and Mike cut in Mike's living room. Alex also tells the Graham Dechter lesson that shaped him, the night Quincy Jones called him over to say he heard Ray Brown in his playing, and how he found the upright Penn Jillette plays today.

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