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Frank Vignola/Joe Ascione: 66 2/3
by Marcia Hillman
The Frank & Joe Show's second release finds the group expanded to a sextet--lead guitarist Frank Vignola and percussionist Joe Ascione add rhythm guitarist Ken Smith, bassist Gary Mazzaroppi, and percussionists Chuck Ferruggia and Rich Zukor to the roster (the disc also includes one vocal apiece by Jane Monheit and Janis Siegel). The “show opens with Rodgers and Hammerstein's standard “It Might As Well Be Spring done with a samba-like beat. Vignola plays the melody, then goes off ...
read moreFrank Vignola/Joe Ascione: 33 1/3: The Frank & Joe Show
by Mitchell Seidel
Guitarist Frank Vignola and drummer/percussionist Joe Ascione recently marked their one-year anniversary of Sunday night gigs at New York's Sweet Rhythm with the release of this wonderfully quirky album that defies definition. How else can you describe a recording that features the theme from an old cartoon show, a rock era pop tune, Cole Porter and Rimsky-Korsakov all on the same disc? Vignola and Ascione have long established themselves as younger musicians with both an appreciation for ...
read moreThe Frank & Joe Show: Looking for a Long, Happy Run
by R.J. DeLuke
Back in the 1960s, after the British Invasion, it seemed every block had a band and anyone who knew three chords on a guitar joined in. Maybe they couldn't really play guitar, and the drummer might have sounded like he should be washing pots and pans, not banging on them. But it was all among friends and it was fun. It was a feeling. Imagine if such a feeling were to be transposed to those who actually knew ...
read moreFrank Vignola and Joe Ascione: 33 1/3: The Frank & Joe Show
by J. Robert Bragonier
If you were in New York City some Sunday night and you should chance to wander by the nightclub Sweet Rhythm, you would experience a musical happening of ever-increasing proportions. There, guitarist Frank Vignola, percussionist Joe Ascione, and “their merry band of music makers" hold court for an ever-expanding group of devotees. What makes these events noteworthy is the breadth of different musical dialects spoken: gypsy swing, breezy island melodies, cowboy kitsch, Latin and Spanish-tinged evergreens--or should I say cacti?--and ...
read moreThe Frank and Joe Show: The Hoot Factor at Sweet Rhythm
by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
These guys are a hoot. On first hearing Frank & Joe's debut CD on Hyena Records, 33 1/3 , I e-mailed Joe that very thought, and he wrote back, “what is this 'hoot'?" I said it refers to something that's fun and delightful, like their CD. Turns out it's also a hoot to watch “The Frank and Joe Show" itself, as I did recently at Sweet Rhythm, where it's been running for months every Sunday night. The band that evening ...
read moreFrank Vignola: Blues for a Gypsy
by David Adler
With this CD, Frank Vignola turns in an exquisite set of solo acoustic guitar music. It’s intended as an oblique tribute to Django Reinhardt, sort of picking up where Larry Coryell and Philip Catherine left off. Vignola, however, plays only two Reinhardt compositions, “Tears" and “Manoir De Mes Reves." And he starts off with something most unusual: a rubato treatment of Charlie Parker’s “Donna Lee" that ultimately winds up to an old-fashioned swing tempo (perhaps the first solo version of ...
read moreFrank Vignola: Off Broadway
by C. Michael Bailey
The 2000 Series. No, this is not the 2000 World Series, handily won by the New York Yankees. This is the contemporary jazz series being produced by German Label Nagel-Heyer. When I say contemporary jazz, I mean that in the temporal sense. It is music being freshly composed and performed today. The majority of Nagel-Heyer's catalog is devoted to Traditional Jazz, a la Louis Armstrong and Bix Biederbecke. The newest release in this series is Guitarist Frank Vignola's Off Broadway. ...
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