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Emma Frank

Depending on when you walk in on a song, Emma's music might sound like folk, jazz, even R&B. It's music that never stays put, full of moving parts, shifting tempos, and winding melodies. Her songs are journeys of self-discovery, framed by insightful lyrics and her warm, gossamer voice that songwriter Leif Vollebekk described as "like leather on silk."

Born and raised outside of Boston, Massachusetts, Emma Frank moved to Montreal in 2006 to study literature at McGill University. It's there that she began performing regularly, releasing two critically acclaimed albums under her own name on the Montreal-based label, The 270 Sessions and performing with art-pop ensembles like She's Got a Habit and Malcolm Sailor's Songs for Voice and Brass. After coming to New York in August of 2015 to perform in Franky Rousseau and Dominic Mekky's chamber opera "April", Emma decided to move to Brooklyn. It's there that she penned the songs on her latest release, "Ocean Av". The music was realized by collaborating and working with the pianist Aaron Parks, and features Rick Rosato on bass, Jim Black on drums, Franky Rousseau on guitar and production.

Emma Frank has performed at Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, NXNE, Pop Montreal, the Toronto Jazz Festival, Ottawa Winter Jazz Festival, and performs regularly in New York City.

Her fourth album, Come Back, on Montreal label, Justin Time, features Aaron Parks, Franky Rousseau, Tommy Crane and Zack Lober, and is due out early 2019.

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Album Review

Emma Frank: Come Back

Read "Come Back" reviewed by Serena Antinucci


Non capita spesso di ascoltare una voce così pacata e rassicurante, capace di amplificare le nostre sensibilità, placare introspezioni turbolente, in un breve istante. La voce di Emma Frank è un corpo a sé, viaggia libera su strade lineari e lo fa con una purezza inusuale. Il suo canto è una memoria della vita e delle sue storie. I testi sono racconti onesti, che esplorano, insieme all'ascoltatore, l'idea d'amore, di bisogno, di impegno verso sé stessi e gli altri, ma ...

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Album Review

Emma Frank: Come Back

Read "Come Back" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann


It takes most artists many years and several tries (accompanied by one mishap or another) to turn the search for momentum within a composition into something elegant in which the understated beauty manifests itself naturally, as if it had always been there. New York-based singer-songwriter Emma Frank already reached that point on her third effort, last year's Ocean Av (Justin Time Records 2018). Drenched in a light RnB touch which saw her whispy falsetto accompanied by melodic piano motifs, the ...

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Interview

Emma Frank: Well-Rounded And Quite Frank

Read "Emma Frank: Well-Rounded And Quite Frank" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann


Among today's protagonists, breaking the boundaries between what vocal jazz should and folk or singer-songwriter music can be--Gretchen Parlato, Esperanza Spalding or Rebecca Martin come to mind--jny: Boston-born and raised Emma Frank is deservedly making a name for herself. On her last outing Ocean Av (Susan Records, 2018) the singer's songwriting demonstrates the perfect balance between elaborate harmonies, the melodic immediacy of catchy choruses and dynamic rhythmic intricacies that are paired with refined lyrics. Of course, being backed by a ...

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"Emma Frank, who reaches a sublime new plane of musicality on her excellent third album, is an artist worthy of observation with serious ears."

— Ron Hart, DownBeat

"Vocalist Emma Frank brings genuine peacefulness and transparent honesty to everything she touches."

— Sébastien Hélary, Nextbop

"Ocean Av… features Frank's quirky-gorgeous songs, arrangements worked out in coordination with jazz pianist Aaron Parks, and percussion from Jim Black (!). Her vocal style has a gauzy directness, but the art woven all around it is undeniably connected to our jazz tradition. It's a minor masterpiece…"

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