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Frank Portolese

I come from Mishawaka, Indiana. When I was 10 years old I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan TV show. The next day we were all on the playground during recess deciding what instruments we were going to play in the band we were going to form. I was going to play harpsichord but that didn't work out. Now my buddy Chuck had a $20 acoustic guitar with a big note painted on the top. He showed me some chords, and after his parents bought him a nice Gibson SG Chuck let me borrow the big note guitar and his chord book. I remember that the "D" chord was really hard for me.

In those days I would take the AM radio from the kitchen into my bedroom and listen to the music on WLS and WCFL every night. I found I could pick out the bass lines of those British Invasion groups. I noticed that if the bass note was an A, chances are the chord was some kind of A chord. I've had a good ear for music ever since.

I would play my riffs and my friends would flip out and say I was great. I would think, "What's wrong with YOU?" I learned that people are easily impressed, and it was a little disillusioning. I liked playing, however. I knew there was more to music than this, and that I was not going to find it in Mishawaka.

I went to college and it was awful. After a year I went to New York, stayed with friends and tried to be a rock and roll guitar player. I lasted two months. Of all things, I got homesick. New York was fast, the people were fast, I wasn't sure I could hang. Small town boy. Back in Indiana, tail between my legs, and my Dad found me a better school.

Junior year, I finally heard Joe Pass and George Benson. I had pretty much become this blazing rock player, but Jazz music hit me right between the eyes. This was it. I wasn't going to be able to live with myself if I didn't at least try to learn Jazz guitar. So I finished school to avoid breaking my parents' hearts, then I moved to Chicago.

In two months I was studying with the great Jack Cecchini, who owned the guitar shop where I worked. Money was tight, but I lived simply. I delivered pizza so that I could eat. I began teaching, and when I had 30 students I quit the pizza job. Jack would occasionally talk someone into giving me a gig. I would go and everybody would be all friendly and smiling and then the phone wouldn't ring again for four months. I worked hard, but boy, I was green. I worked 5 nights a week in a lounge band while teaching days and didn't sleep for six months. VERY slowly learned the jobbing thing and played with cordovoxes and accordion players and violinists. This went on for seven years before I got into the good circuit and REALLY found out how bad I was.

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158
Album Review

Frank Portolese: Plectrum Jazz Guitar Solos

Read "Plectrum Jazz Guitar Solos" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Solo jazz guitar is a harsh and unforgiving lover. The piano provides a more complete performance experience as a solo instrument for technical reasons, though this same completeness can be achieved on guitar by a precious few, talented enough to achieve such artistic parity. Add to this the stipulation that a plectrum (guitar pick) be used in preference to finge-picking, and the number of masters diminishes even further. The touchstone of this brand of playing is, of course, Joe Pass, ...

171
Album Review

Frank Lamphere: Ain't Love a Kick: The Unforgettable Songs of Sammy Cahn

Read "Ain't Love a Kick: The Unforgettable Songs of Sammy Cahn" reviewed by Dave Nathan


One of the most prolific and successful lyric writers in the history of American popular song was Sammy Cahn. His career, like Gaul, can be divided into two parts. The first was that eminently thriving collaboration with Jule Styne which produced one hit after another including "Time After Time", "The Things We Did Last Summer" and "I've Heard That Song Before". The second major partnership by the New York lyricist was with the inestimable Jimmy Van Heusen. This merger was ...

142
Album Review

Frank Portolese: Last Call

Read "Last Call" reviewed by Jim Santella


This is a guitar lover’s album. Frank Portolese plays standards as they’ve been done before and he also turns it loose with a free spirit and a loose structure. Alternating groups, the guitarist works standards with piano trio for six tracks, stretches out with Brian Sandstrom and Rusty Jones for four, and paints the title track as a soulful, cryin’ in your beer, unaccompanied blues wail.

Portolese’s guitar tone is different. Neil Tesser points out in the album’s liner notes ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Ain't Love a Kick:...

Late Nite Records
2002

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Ain't Love A Kick -...

Late Nite Records
2002

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Last Call

Southport Records
2001

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