Check Out Ric Frank’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ric Frank.

Hi Ric, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am a musician/composer/arranger/educator/artist living and working in New York City. My musical journey began when I was eight years old and my parents asked me if I wanted to go to Hebrew School and have a Bar Mitzvah or learn a musical instrument. I decided that I wanted to learn a musical instrument. Many influences in my family and relatives gave me a variety of choices. My mother played piano and she had also played the cello as a child, two of her sisters played the piano as well, two of my uncles played the violin, and there were cousins who played flute, trumpet, and snare drum. I chose the flute. My cousin Nevin became my first flute teacher until he left for college when I got another teacher who was recommended by a fellow student. Nevin’s parents were musicians too: his father was the conductor and founder of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra as well as a child prodigy on the violin, and his mother was the premier piano teacher in Dayton.

In addition to having vibrant musical surroundings, I also had another aunt and uncle who were artists/sculptors and owned a ceramic supply store. When my mother would go and visit her sister at the ceramic supply shop, I would be given a lump of clay and told to have some fun with it. This inspired me to do a variety of art projects that eventually brought me to painting. I ended up having a solo show in Greenwich Village and have been commissioned to create art for various clients.

Growing up in an environment full of music and art has been a big factor in making me who I am today. I never thought about how different it was from the rest of my friends, but now I see what a big impact it had on me. In eighth grade, I was recruited for the high school marching band. Midway through my sophomore year, I heard a jazz flute album, FLUTE FEVER by Jeremy Steig, which blew my mind. I tried to figure out what he was doing but I had no knowledge of music theory or harmony. I was having a hard time so my mother suggested that I take it to my teacher and ask for help. This seemed like the right thing to do. Well, I lent the album to my teacher to listen to and two weeks later she handed it back to me and said, “Don’t waste your time on this garbage.” I was devastated and stopped playing at the end of the school year for two years. 

When I arrived at college the first people I met were two brothers who lived across the hall from me and were both musicians. At that time Jethro Tull had just come out and was very big. After talking for a while, we decided to start a band. I called my parents and had them send me my flute. From that point on, I played in many bands across the country and studied with a variety of teachers, some famous and some not. My father had mentioned to a musician he knew that I was pursuing a musical career and he said I would need to learn the clarinet and saxophone as well.

So, I first bought an old silver clarinet at a flea market that my teacher said wasn’t even worth the $5 I paid for it. Then I got a tenor sax but ended up trading it in for a bass clarinet. In 1971, I came to NYC to study with Jeremy Steig, the flutist who had inspired me to play jazz on the flute. I stayed only a few months before moving back to the Midwest to play with a band in Detroit.

After that, I moved to Yellow Springs, Ohio (played in Cecil Taylor’s Black Music Ensemble) Louisville, Kentucky; Denver, Colorado (played with the Steve Getz Quintet); San Francisco, California playing in a variety of bands and studying with many different teachers. Then in 1975, I moved back to New York City. Once back in NYC I fee-lanced and formed bands doing a variety of musical styles.

In 1976, I started to work for a small independent, artist-owned record label, first as a gofer then servicing radio and press, and eventually doing the preliminary edits of some recordings. This was tremendously helpful as I started to promote myself. In 1977, I started to play saxophone in addition to the flute and clarinet, which opened up many more opportunities for work. Also, I would play on the street, either solo flute playing classical music or clarinet or sax playing traditional New Orleans jazz. At this time I had to hold down a variety of jobs outside of music to make ends meet. The early 1980s had me playing flute in a chamber trio (The Times Trio) that had a number of steady gigs and party jobs. The cellist in the group, Shana Sear-Gaskill, recommended me to sub for her in early childhood music and movement class for two weeks.

At the end of the two weeks, they liked me so much that they hired me full time. This led to my getting other teaching jobs in the early childhood music field at The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and the Huntington Suzuki School. This was a shift in my musical career that I had never imagined. I ended up teaching at a number of other schools and eventually finished my teaching career in a full-time position at The Collegiate School for Boys until I retired from teaching in 2018.

During my 30-some years of teaching young children, I wrote over 250 songs for the various ages, 2.5 – 11 years old. These songs are about topics such as dinosaurs, the rainforest, outer space, painters, dancers, Southeast Asia, Jazz, Classical composers, treasures, mysteries, islands, performing arts, musical instruments, and seasons, to name just a few.

During my tenure at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, where I was the director of the Pre-school division, they were planning for their centennial celebration in 1998 and wanted a “Dixieland band” to lead a parade.The jazz director didn’t want to do it so I said I could put together a contemporary New Orleans brass band that would be much hipper. They loved my idea. I then started to transcribe and write arrangements and recruited players for the celebration. After the celebration, all the musicians wanted to continue playing this music.

This was the beginning of the Jambalaya Brass Band. Through the Conservatory, the band performed for halftime shows for the New York Knicks and the New York Liberty at Madison Square Garden and as part of the Conservatory’s Free Friday concert series.

My musical endeavors since the 1980s have encompassed Latin, Jazz (big band, small group, traditional New Orleans, and Avant-guard), Blues, Rock, Classical, musical theater, and multi-media. Some of the highlights have been with The Duke Ellington Orchestra, Michael Packer Blues Band, Louis Ramirez, Ray Santos Caribbean Music Experience, Todd Wolfe Blues Band, Armando Manzanero, and Steve Tintweiss.

In addition, my jazz quintet and the Jambalaya Brass Band also performed at the Blue Note NYC. Once I started the Jambalaya Brass Band, I began to befriend musicians in New Orleans as well as spent time in New Orleans studying, researching, and playing with various brass bands there. The research and the private clarinet studies were supported by grants from The Van Horne Foundation for Excellence in Teaching through the Collegiate School.

All of this provided education and understanding of the music and culture of New Orleans that has become an important part of making the music I have written for the Jambalaya Brass Band authentic, and carrying on the tradition of New Orleans music. What started out as a band for a small community music school has become a band with three CDs, of which HABANA TO NEW ORLEANS was in the first round of balloting for the 2019 Grammys.

All three CDs have received airplay on broadcast radio and internet radio on over 100 stations and charted in the top 10 on the CMJ and Roots Music Report. Jambalaya Brass Band has performed at The Blue Note NYC, B. B. King Blues Club NYC, S.O.B.s NYC, and many other venues and private affairs in the New York tri-state area.

The music that I’ve written, 25 compositions, for the Jambalaya Brass Band is published by 1630-Heights Music International and is available for purchase. The children’s songs will be published soon by 1630-Heights Music International as well.

I am very proud of the fact that I taught at the oldest school in North America and one of the most prestigious schools in the USA, and that I have been inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame, honored as Champions For Children by the New York State Association for the Education of Young Children, and recognized by the Dayton City Commission as a Dayton Original.

I am also proud to have had great success with the Jambalaya Brass Band as well, all of this without a college degree.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Some of my struggles have been being able to obtain enough work performing to sustain myself, which was sometimes due to not playing enough different instruments.

Most recently due to cancer surgery, I lost the use of my left vocal chord and now I’m no longer able to sing. Fortunately, I’m not teaching, so I don’t need to sing and in my band, my vocal chores have been taken up by other band members.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and educator. My specialties and where I am well known are as an educator in the early childhood area where I have received awards and have a catalog of over 250 songs for children ages 2.5-11years. As an instrumentalist, I have made a name for myself in blues, New Orleans, and Latin music.

Also, I’ve had years of experience performing all kinds of jazz, Latin, chamber music, and rock. The accomplishment I’m most proud of is being in the first round of balloting for the Grammys for the Jambalaya Brass Band’s CD HABANA TO NEW ORLEANS which has 10 of my original compositions.

The fact that I am not only a musician/composer/educator but also an artist as well as having the various accomplishments without a college degree sets me apart from others.

What was your favorite childhood memory?
My favorite childhood memory is of going to hear my Uncle Paul conduct the Dayton Philharmonic in Island Park in Dayton, Ohio, and marching around to Sousa marches.

Contact Info:

• Email: nysoul@aol.com
• Website: www.jambalayabrassband.com www.ricfrankmusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jambalayabrass/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ric.frank.3/ https://www.facebook.com/jambalayabrassband
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/jambalayabrass
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5CEA69456E502F43
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/jambalayabrassband

Image Credits
Cathy Coppola, Solwazi Afi Olusola, and Marion Frank