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Frank LoCrasto

Since he was a landlocked Dallas, Texas kid, beach culture has held a tropical mystique for pianist/composer Frank LoCrasto. Family trips documented by camcorder videos, featuring slinky jazz-fusion soundtracks are etched in the Brooklyn-based artist’s memory. In his mind, there will always be a fantasyland replete with wicker furniture, pristine beaches, swaying palm trees, the smell of vanilla-scented suntan lotion, and breathtaking aqua water expanses.

These days, LoCrasto uses his imagination, evocative musicality, prodigious chops, and eclectic sonic palette to create dreamy musical locales. His transporting compositions are genre-defying but informed loosely by the feel of jazz, ambient music, Latin, vibey 1960s and 1970s B-movie film scores, and exotica. His tunes are dynamic and dimensional, brimming with thoughtful instrumentation choices, lush orchestrations, and melodies and movements that exhibit narrative instrumental arcs. His recordings are vibey, and favor little atmospheric imperfections that lend them a warmly organic feel. LoCrasto has just released his soundtrack to the 2012 comedy-drama, Sandbar, and, in the Summer 2021, he will issue his fifth solo album.

“Several different things inspire that transporting feeling of my music. These days, it can come from something I read, a movie, or a photo I saw. The cover art on the front of old LP's definitely transports you. It's an artifact made in a different time that's basically a window into the past—time travel into a different time I'll never know. Those types of visual elements I find hugely romantic. That, and the sound of tape,” LoCrasto shares.

To date, the Texas-born, Brooklyn-based artist has released four solo albums (When You’re There 2006, El Dorado 2011, LoCrasto 2015, and Lost Dispatch 2019). He has composed and recorded music for three feature length films (Sandbar 2012, Union Furnace 2015, Stranger in the Dunes 2016), and has had songs placed in the 2014 movie, Obvious Child, and the 2020 HBO series, How to With Jon Wilson. In addition, LoCrasto has recorded and toured with Cass McCombs, Pat Martino, Jeremy Pelt, James Iha, Parquet Courts, Fruit Bats, Nicholas Payton, Greg Osby, Okkervil River, and Wallace Roney. He has also appeared as a sideman on over 70 albums. Prior to the pandemic, LoCrasto was actively touring with his band, Cass McCombs, the Fruit Bats, and Grateful Shred.

LoCrasto’s father is a bassist and his mother has always been supportive of the arts. At age 5, his parents bought him a Casio keyboard and enrolled him in piano lessons. Yet, it wasn’t until he was 8 years old that LoCrasto found his way with piano. Eschewing lessons, he made progress on his own, playing by ear, and, by the age of 10, LoCrasto was playing paid gigs at the mall.

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Album Review

Frank LoCrasto: When You're There

Read "When You're There" reviewed by J Hunter


Jazz is like the Constitution--a living thing that evolves with the times. If that weren't true, every player would sound like Louis Armstrong. And while there are more than a few people who would be good with that, obsessively repeating and archiving past triumphs only serves to preserve this music. To keep the genre alive and on any kind of growth curve, it needs continual infusions of new blood and fresh ideas.

This is the up side of ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Unexpected Beauty

self released
2022

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LoCrasto

sTaNk
2015

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El Dorado

Hundred Pockets
2011

buy

Simple Times

From: El Dorado
By Frank LoCrasto

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