Frank Vignola is deemed to be among the top rank of guitarists on the jazz guitar music scene these days! Born on December 30, 1965 on Lengthy Island, New York, he started enjoying guitar at the age of five. As his proficiency grew, he spent many hours listening to the music of legendary jazz guitarists Django Reinhardt, Joe Pass, and Johnny Smith. Frank gained a spiritual kind of inspiration from these guitarists’ recordings although also generating an intricate research of the complexities of these guitar masters’ variations – slowing down his vinyl records to analyze many a solo. Frank’s 1st teacher was his father, a semi-specialist banjo player. Later, Frank grew to become the star pupil of guitarist Jimmy George, who was 1 of the unique Dion and the Belmonts. At age 12, Frank took up the tenor banjo and swiftly burst on the music scene in a way that would portend many of the accolades and milestones to come in his career as a jazz guitarist.
Although certainly steeped in the standard schools of jazz music, particularly in the formative years, Frank would ultimately take inspiration from a broad arc of the musical spectrum.
Guitarists such as Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery and Lonnie Johnson are evident influences, but one particular could be surprised to understand that rocker Jimi Hendrix has also received the near scrutiny of Frank’s ear. Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Thad Jones and Duke Ellington have all had inspirational effect on his guitar music. Frank attended the Cultural Arts Centre on Extended Island, New York and graduated from there with honors. Even though he was there he played in various progressive rock groups and at the age of 15 Frank won a competition sponsored by the McDonalds Corporation to seem in their State Jazz Band.
While still in his teens, Frank seasoned the most effective music schooling attainable – proper on the bandstand as a working musician! Soon named among the leading ranked musicians in New York, Frank performed and toured with this kind of headliners as Max Morath and Leon Redbone. At age 23, he made the decision to lead his own group and formed his version of the famed Quintet of the Hot Club of France. Their debut at the New York cabaret, Michael’s Pub, was a smash good results and launched his profession as a guitarist “in the spotlight.” Tours of Europe, recording sessions, and an exclusive recording contract with the Concord Jazz record label would all follow in speedy succession in a number of brief many years. Frank would go on to perform and/or record with such varied artists as Chet Atkins, Madonna, Jon Faddis, Woody Allen, Ringo Starr, The Manhattan Transfer, Frank Wess, Elvin Jones, Lionel Hampton and countless other legends from the golden age of jazz.
More recently, Frank Vignola has been the guitarist with the Mark O’Conner Trio’s tribute to Stephane Grappelli and was also executing each Monday evening with the Les Paul Trio at the Iridium in New York City right up until Les Paul passed away. Frank has also been carrying out with John Lewis’ group Evolution. Luckily for aspiring guitarists, Frank has gone on to publish many instructional guitar tab book/CDs and DVD courses that teach his harmonic and melodic concepts as nicely as the guitar techniques that he employs when he plays.