Jazz Articles about Dave Frank

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Dave Frank

by Daniel Peck
August 28, 2026

Dave Frank is one of the busiest solo jazz pianists and music educators on the scene today. He is the author of the best-selling Hal Leonard book and video series, Joy of Improv and Breakthrough to Improv, was an Associate Professor of piano at Berklee College of Music in Boston from 1987-2004, and was a co-founder of the New York School of Jazz. His involvement in the Dave Frank School of Jazz in New York is kind of ...

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Dave Frank: Portrait Of New York

by Bruce Lindsay
October 28, 2010

Twelve tunes inspired by or dedicated to the city of New York come together to form Portrait Of New York, only the fourth album by ex-Berklee Professor Dave Frank in a career as a musician and educator that stretches back to the '80s. Why Frank's recorded ouvre should be so brief is something of a mystery, based on the evidence on Portrait Of New York. He may not be pushing the envelope, but this is a quite beautiful album: a ...

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Dave Frank: Portrait Of New York

by Dan Bilawsky
October 20, 2010

Jazz and New York are like hot dogs and baseball, or peanut butter and jelly. The Big Apple has been the epicenter of so many important movements and moments in jazz, that it's hard to think of any other place--save perhaps New Orleans--that deserves the honor of being captured in song. Pianist Dave Frank, widely recognized as a premier jazz educator and performer, pays tribute to New York with solo piano paintings of various streets and locales, and four reworked ...

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Dave Frank: Portrait of New York

by C. Michael Bailey
October 20, 2010

New York-based Dave Frank is a piano style unto himself. With the most solid left hand playing jazz piano, Frank delights in composing and improvising the most devilish bass lines, defying Einstein's rule governing space and time. Frank's last recording, Ballads and Burners (Jazz Heads, 2007), amply demonstrated why Frank has a Jazz School named for him. Frank joins Alex Levin and his recent New York Portraits (Self Produced, 2010) in paying homage to the Cultural Center ...

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Dave Frank: Ballads and Burners

by Budd Kopman
June 22, 2007

The liner notes to Ballads and Burners states, “There are no pitch/speed alterations or edits on any of the tracks..."--because the pure physical speed of some of the playing is not to be believed. Chops does not music make, however. Fortunately, pianist Dave Frank is as much a musician as he is a technician. To some extent, technique can be learned, assuming the player's reflexes are fast enough, and he or she can learn to relax. Musicianship ...

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Dave Frank: Ballads & Burners

by Michael P. Gladstone
May 24, 2007

Dave Frank is a professor of piano at Boston's Berklee College of Music, co-founder of the New York School of Jazz and best-selling author of The Joy of Improv. Over the past twenty five years, he has developed a highly personalized approach towards solo piano performance. Ballads and Burners is the follow-up to his 1997 Jazzheads debut, Power of the Piano.

What makes Frank's albums so interesting is the intensity and drive that he pours into his solo ...

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Dave Frank: Ballads & Burners

by C. Michael Bailey
April 6, 2007

For pianist, composer, and educator Dave Frank, the magic is in the left hand. Ballads & Burners is a collection of original compositions that brims with muscularity and assertion, whether ballads or burners.

What makes Frank interesting is the complexity of melody and rhythm he composes into his up-tempo pieces. The opener, “Spirit of the Burn, illustrates this. Following the exposition of a complex low register figure, Frank then begins to improvise with his right hand, displaying considerable prowess and ...