# An extremely versatile jazz guitarist, Frank Vignola has demonstrated: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/12/30/an-extremely-versatile-jazz-guitarist-frank-vignola-has-demonstrated-video/
- Published: 2017-12-30T00:04:07+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**30.12. – Happy Birthday !!! An extremely versatile jazz guitarist, Frank Vignola
has demonstrated that he is capable of playing everything from fusion and commercial
pop-jazz to hard bop, post-bop, and swing. The native New Yorker has a wide variety
of influences; everyone from Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, and Pat Metheny to Django
Reinhardt and Charlie Christian has affected his playing in some way. **

For Vignola, different influences have asserted themselves at different times — 
the Reinhardt or Christian influence might be especially prominent in a swing environment,
whereas he has sometimes sounded more Metheny-ish in fusion or jazz/NAC settings.
And he might be mindful of Montgomery or Pass on a hard bop or post-bop project.
Born on suburban Long Island on December 30, 1965, Vignola was raised in the New
York area. The Italian-American started playing the guitar at the age of five and
grew up admiring a variety of guitarists. Far from a jazz snob, Vignola never listened
to jazz exclusively and was also a major fan of rock, RB, and pop. The guitarists
that he admired ranged from jazz musicians to rock icons like Eric Clapton and Eddie
Van Halen. As a young adult, Vignola studied at the Cultural Arts Center of Long
Island and went on to enjoy a lot of sideman gigs in the 1980s. The New Yorker was
27 when, in 1993, he signed with Concord Jazz and recorded his first Concord session
as a leader, Appel Direct. Several more Concord releases followed in the 1990s, 
and the early 2000s found Vignola recording for Nagel-Heyer as well as Acoustic 
Disc.

Currently Frank has been extremely busy with a variety of projects including MaMaVig,
a trio featuring mandolin virtuoso Jamie Masefield of The Jazz Mandolin Project,
Gary Mazzaroppi the formidable bass player, and Frank. They play a unique blend 
of gypsy grass in the style of Django Reinhardt and take it to a whole other level.
The name MaMaVig is a merging of their last names.

Frank has also been investing some time into Frank Vignola’s Gypsy Grass Collective
featuring a rotating roster of supreme players featuring some of the acoustic music
scene’s hottest young players. Melding contemporary gypsy jazz, bluegrass, toe-tapping
swing and front porch picking into a uniquely eclectic, upbeat sound of their own,
Gypsy Grass is sure to amaze fans of the various styles and genres it employs. At
times sublime, controlled and elegant, these innovators can instantly change gears
to wildly imaginative improvisation and nasty, hot picking. Think Django Reinhardt
meets Jerry Reed with some flashes of Bach and Miles Davis…

“Frank Vignola is the perfect guitarist really. He knows every chord under the sun,
he can drive the rhythm so hard that you really don’t need any more of a rhythm 
section practically for anything. And then when he begins his solos, one knows immediately
that the music making is on the highest plane….Frank is a soloist to the very extreme
limits that you would assume a solist could ever be, a genuine virtuoso.” ~Mark 
O’Connor …This is why Frank Vignola is one of the most sought after acoustic guitarists
on the planet. In addition to Mark O’Connor, he has toured and recorded with the
likes of Madonna, Elton John, Ringo Starr, Les Paul, Lionel Hampton, Donald Fagen,
Queen Latifah, David Grisman, Bucky Pizzarelli, Howard Alden, Gene Bertoncini and
many more. He recorded for Concord Jazz and Hyena Records before forming his own
label in 2006. Frank also performs with MaMaVig, featuring Jamie Masefield (Jazz
Mandolin Project) on mandolin and Gary Mazzaroppi.

Casey Driessen’s debut solo album, 3D (Sugar Hill Records), is up for a Grammy. 
This 27 year old phenomenon started young with Suzuki lessons and instruction and
guidance from the likes of Darol Anger and Vassar Clements. This led to sharing 
the stage and studio with folks that he grew up listening to like Steve Earle, Tim
O’Brien, Darrell Scott, Béla Fleck and Lee Ann Womack. He has even recorded with
John Mayer and can be heard on the soundtrack to the Johnny Cash movie Walk the 
Line. Driessen has toured China on an embassy sponsored excursion, and tours regularly
with his own band of rotating characters, The Colorfools.

“Casey Driessen is someone who may, before he is done playing, change the way the
fiddle is used and thought of, as much as someone like Jimi Hendrix did with the
guitar or Bela Fleck with the banjo.” ~Acoustic Music

One of the best contemporary instrumentalists in the field of folk or bluegrass,
Matt Flinner has played with Jerry Douglas, Darol Anger, Stuart Duncan, the Trischkas,
Tim and Mollie O’Brien, Sally Van Meter and the group Sugarbeat, and has released
his own solo albums for the CompassRecords label. At first a banjo prodigy, he later
made the move to mandolin. However, Flinner remained proficient on both instruments,
winning the coveted Winfield National Championships for banjo in 1990, then again
the following year for mandolin.

“Flinner provides the next logical evolutionary step to David Grisman’s unique dawg
style, and does it with a nod to the past and a vision of the future.” ~Bluegrass
Now

Gypsy Grass is rounded out by Vinny Raniolo (guitar), Rich Zukor (percussion) and
a revolving door of bassists, including Gary Mazzarappi, Mark Schatz (Nickel Creek,
Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Maura O’Connell, Tony Rice, John Hartford, Emmylou Harris,
Linda Ronstadt, and Tim & Mollie O’Brien, Derek Jones and Samson Grisman. This underscores
the “collective” aspect of Gypsy Grass. A collective structure gives the band the
freedom to experiment with different types of artists, for example a jazz bassist
versus a traditional bluegrass bassist, and it gives the band the ability to interchange
other top rate players when core members are not available, as well as the ability
to bring in players they want to write and perform with.

![Image result for Frank Vignola](https://i0.wp.com/media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/
05/27/frankvinny-cc13fb650202842362399036241c20d6c86ee2a9-s1000-c85.jpg?w=640&ssl
=1)

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