Frank Kimbraugh's Album "Air"

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Frank Kimbrough’s Album “Air”

Jacob Lockhart

MUSL 148

Jazz Assignment 1

Music Album Review

        

After listening to album after album of artists’ tributes to traditional jazz songs of the past, it was a breath of fresh air to hear the musician Frank Kimbrough playing something new and unique.  Released in 2007, the album “Air” is a compilation of fresh and original music that is a joy to listen to.  Even though the album features a solo pianist in all its songs, the music still includes several elements of jazz in the textbook sense, including syncopation and call-and-response.  Upon reviewing three of the albums songs, including hits “Air,” “Wig-Wise,” and “Three Chords,” Kimbrough shows his ingenuity, creativity and poise on the piano and changes my perspective on solo jazz and how it can be played.

Frank Kimbrough, born in Roxboro, North Carolina, has been playing solo piano since he was four years old (Palmetto).  His first great influence was his father, a piano teacher.  Frank became the church organist by the age of twelve and organized his own bands before reaching high school.  After discovering his love for jazz, he left high school and found work in Chapel Hill, NC just before moving to New York City in 1985.  This move signified his transition away from classical piano music into a world of freestyle and jazz.  In New York, Kimbrough found his enthusiasm for music by Herbie Nichols, also a solo jazz pianist. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) gave him funding for his performances, which lead to the release of the highly acclaimed recordings of “The Herbie Nichols Project” (Palmetto).  From that point on, the influence of playing Herbie Nichols’ music was the driving force behind Frank Kimbrough’s future path as a solo pianist (D’Gamma).

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        As a pianist, Frank Kimbrough was never in the main spotlight of jazz music, never topped the charts, but his musical brilliance is unquestionable in his album “Air.”  The entire album takes on a Herbie Nichols style, created almost entirely by improvisation and played by one instrument, the piano.  In addition, Nichols’ music did not always maintain a constant tempo, which is very similar to Kimbrough’s style.

Nonetheless, the song “Air” offers its listeners a slow, soothing sound set to relax the mind.  Unlike the jazz that causes dancing and shouting, Frank Kimbrough demonstrates his control of the senses as ...

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