RIP Frank Kimbrough

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humprof

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Thanks for making me aware of his work, loved it instantly. The way he playfully unravels the melodic elements in The Spins was masterful. The Monk track shows a giant talent with a normal sized ego engaging with the other musicians beautifully towards their reading of Monk's work. I've been listening to my best friend play piano for nearly 50 years; formally arranged pieces, improvisations and on the better days, that precious space in between. I plan to share Frank's music with him. Sad to find out about him at this stage but better than never having known.
 
Yes, I love his work on his earlier Mapleshade Records recordings, especially.

DITTO, I have a number of his spectacular Mapleshade Records recordings, as well.

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R.I.P. FRANK

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I just ordered this 6 RBCD box set from AmazonUS of Frank Kimbrough playing the COMPLETE Recordings of Thelonious Sphere Monk. Based on the ecstatic reviews, these interpretations encompassing all of Monk's 70 compositions sounds ultra enticing [priced VERY well as ImportCD is charging $66+]

https://www.amazon.com/Monks-Dreams...=music&sprefix=frank+kimbrough,aps,133&sr=1-1

It's an amazing set. (I bought the FLAC download version from Bandcamp when it came out.) Nate Chinen, who wrote both the liner notes and the obituary in my OP, is spot-on about Kimbough's approach.

I love everything I've ever heard Frank play: his solo records, his trio and quartet records, his duets with Joe Locke, his sideman work with Ben Allison and Maria Schneider (and others), all the Herbie Nichols Project stuff...his death is a huge loss.

Here's Kimbrough' own tribute to Andrew Hill:
http://www.andrewhilljazz.com/Frank-Kimbrough-bio.html
 
I shared the first link in the original post to turn on a dear old record store friend in San Diego that I would visit several times in a normal year. He was knocked out and tracking down CDs now too!
 
At this point I think I'm just talking to Tim, but that won't stop me.

Last Friday morning I had a newsletter in my inbox from Maria Schneider, the visionary composer and big-band leader whose album Data Lords topped this year's NPR Jazz Critics Poll (started years ago at the Village Voice and overseen by Francis Davis ever since). This issue was a tribute to Frank, who played a core role in Schneider's band for 25 years.

Data Lords is colored--haunted, now--by Frank's presence in ways that Nate Chinen, former jazz critic for the Times, now at WBGO in Newark, captures beautifully in an elegiac essay that appeared on NPR Music that same day. Titled "We Need to Be Able to Feel," it grieves for Frank, whom Chinen invokes at the start and finish of the piece. Nominally about Data Lords, it's finally about loss and community and critical objectivity and "Looking Up." I think it's really moving, whether you like music writing or no.
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/15/957115575/we-need-to-be-able-to-feel
 
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