New Solo Guitar Album with No Overdubs…Pure Playing

Frank Wingold, guitarist, composer, and professor of jazz guitar in Germany, brings his extraordinary technique to his new album, ‘to be frank’.

8 Standards, 1 composition, and 6 free improvisations on 7 string guitars, no overdubs, pure playing.

The improvisations on the album, in whose recordings no overdubs are used, are particularly revealing of his playing style. “I wanted to integrate something that works more with space and with less or with almost no prepared material. With just a sketch, a snapshot, with nothing composed or arranged,” he explains. He regards these improvisations as more like performance than recording, and manages in each of these pieces an impressive dramatic curve.

Wingold draws his influences from the blues guitarists of the 1930s and 40s such as Reverend Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt, but also from the classical guitar repertoire. However, as he explains “for my solo style I’m also inspired by pianists, who have all the possibilities for polyphony, different textures and synchronicity, especially Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau, but also by classical composers such as J.S. Bach, Benjamin Britten, Frank Martin. Reginald Smith Brindle and Leo Brouwer.” 

Wingold believes that there are many possibilities on the guitar which have not yet been exploited. On this album, he combines virtuosity with a range of musical influences to give listeners an entertaining, intellectually stimulating and groundbreaking musical experience.

Check it out – HERE!