Turning it Loose! CD

Dave Frank's new solo CD Turning it Loose! is blowing minds and receiving glowing reviews from the worldwide jazz press. A recording of extraordinary depth and drive, Turning it loose! explores the creative possibilities for the left hand in solo jazz piano performance.

The CD may be heard in its entirety for free at:
http://jazzheads.com/music/turning.html

Turning it Loose! is available for purchase at http://jazzheads.com and may be downloaded at Itunes.

Reviews:

Dave Frank is a music educator as well as a jazz pianist
who was an Associate Professor at the Berklee College of Music as well as author of a best-selling Hal Leonard book and video series on Improvisation. His teachers included the legendary Lennie Tristano and Charlie Banacos. Having
moved to New York, he now directs the Dave Frank School
of Jazz offering private instruction.

His new album displays his strong, distinctive solo
piano approach to a variety of standards. Opening with
“A Night on Tunisia,” one can hear echoes of a variety of
pianists that he has obviously assimilated and his playing
is first rate throughout with his musical explorations
supported by his considerable dexterity on the piano. His
technique is not the end but the means. From his boppish
handling of Gillespie, he turns his attention to the ballads
“Gone With the Wind” and “Alone Together,” where his
improvisations sing. “Snow Falls on Fifth Avenue” opens
wistfully and continues in a more reflective vein while “Star Eyes” opens with a simple statement of the melody before he playfully develops his improvisation.

Each performance is its own little gem as he ruminates on the chords of “Indiana” before stating the melody and then
as his bass lays down chords, races off with his right hand,
before a short comical break into “The Man On the Flying
Trapeze,” before back to a breakneck close. “Without
a Song,” is a lovely, short slow rumination on the melody
while the opening of “All the Things You Are” focuses on
bass lines, before Frank develops a somewhat angular
solo. “Prayer at St. Patrick’s” is a reflective original while
another original, “Musical Roots,” opens with what sounds
like piano exercises before launching into a free-flowing
improvisation.

Dave Frank may be best known as a jazz educator,
but as the superb performances here display, he is simply
an exceptional pianist- Ron Weinstock, Jazz and Blues report.

Dave Frank, “Turning It Loose: Solo Piano” (Jazzheads). Now that Dave McKenna, the great mind-boggling master of “three-handed” solo piano is no longer with us, the piano bench was open for another solo pianist of daunting 10-finger virtuosity to join McKenna’s most logical heir, Buffalo’s Mike Jones (who has long been boggling minds in Las Vegas, including Penn Jillette’s in Penn and Teller). He’s here. His name is Dave Frank.

This is Frank’s third record, and he’s a monster player who says it all comes from feeling “my higher power as a calm presence, morphing into a powerful electric-type of creative energy.” He plays the kind of standards and jazz tunes that McKenna and Jones always turned into such juggernauts — “Alone Together,” “Indiana,” “A Night in Tunisia.” Until he gets to his final line, Frank’s own notes are nothing if not off-putting. But he’s dead on when he says this at the end: “May I suggest that you do what I do with this music: Put on this CD and dance.” - Buffalo News

Dave Frank, Turning It Loose! , Solo jazz piano man that knows how to come on like a one man army, Frank plays up a storm on a set of familiar tunes that he takes some place else. One of those cats that makes you sit back and enjoy his artistry at work (but actually more like at play), Frank hits all the right notes again ands again making this a tasty audio oasis that any real adult listener will love. High octane and spirited, Frank knows his stuff and shares it with an open hand. Hot -Chris Spector, Midwest Records.