Frank Kimbrough
Biography
One of the more individualistic acoustic pianists of the '80s, '90s, and 2000s, Frank Kimbrough is an "inside/outside" improviser whose primary influences range from Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett to Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley, and Andrew Hill. Kimbrough can play with as much elegance as Evans or Jarrett, but that doesn't prevent him from often taking it "outside" and acknowledging Taylor's innovations. The pianist was born and raised in North Carolina, where he learned to appreciate a wide variety of jazz growing up, and did some gigs around Chapel Hill before moving to Washington, D.C., in 1980. During the year he lived in D.C., Kimbrough led his own trio and played a few hard bop gigs with Webster Young and Buck Hill. When Bill Evans died in September 1980, Kimbrough joined Anthony Braxton for a two-night gig paying tribute to the influential pianist.
Kimbrough moved to New York in 1981, and he started recording under his own name five years later. Two cassette-only releases he did for Mapleshade, 1986's Star Crossed Lovers (an unaccompanied solo piano effort) and 1987's Double Visions (a duet with drummer Steve Williams), are out of print, although Mapleshade released his 1988 trio recording, Lonely Woman, on CD in 1995.
Selected Discography
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