Frank LoCrasto :: Kolumbo Interview
What was your childhood like growing up in Texas, and when did you first begin to fall in love with music, more specifically composition and arrangement? Was this something that was relevant around your household when you were young?
I grew up in Garland, Texas, which was pretty normal, suburban, not a lot of excitement. We went to church and played sports, swam, rode bikes, spent a lot of time outside. My parents love music and my father is a bass player, so there was a lot of music around the house. He listened to a lot of Weather Report, Jaco, Tower of Power, Steely Dan, anything with great musicians and songs. My parents gifted me a casio when I was around 5 years old and that kind of set the wheels in motion. They put me, in piano lessons but after a few months, when it started getting harder, I lost interest. Later on, when I was 8, they gifted me a nicer, larger Casio. I got pretty deep into it and my dad and I started jamming together. He showed me standards like "Take the A Train", "Satin Doll", "Don't Get Around Much Anymore", mostly Ellington/Strayhorn tunes. I also started composing around this time and recording at home as well. Around this time, my dad started playing in a big jazz band at Colin County Community College and I would go to rehearsal with him on Tuesday nights. I was pretty enamored by the scope and sound of the band and instruments. When the college started a jazz camp 4 years later, I jumped at the opportunity. I took classes in theory, ear training, I got to play in an avant-garde free big jazz band, and took an arranging class. In the course of a week, I somehow managed to arrange "C Jam Blues" for an 18-piece band. The arrangement was pretty simple but the guys playing it made it sound perfect. I attached a recording of the run through here. From then on, composing and arranging became very important to me. I had an insane amount of fun that week and looking back, it was pivotal.
Who were some of your earliest influences, and when did you realize you wanted to pursue a career in music? Did you participate in any groups or projects prior to starting Kolumbo? What led to you eventually relocating to Brooklyn, NY, as well as the origin of starting Kolumbo?
I'd say my early influences came from records my parents listened to. I loved "Heavy Weather" by Weather Report, mainly "Birdland" and the insane synth solo Joe Zawinul takes at the end. The first cd I ever got was Bill Evans's, "Explorations". I'm not sure why I picked that exact record, but I was told I needed to check out Bill Evans. I still listen to that record quite a bit today. His intro to "Haunted Heart" is really great. Later on, I got the opportunity to attend Booker T. Washington Arts Magnet for high school in Dallas, which was an incredible experience. While there, I was more thoroughly introduced to 70s jazz fusion through my peers. Miles, Headhunters, Return to Forever, Zappa, Mahivishnu Orchestra. And then later, I worked back into the 60s, getting into Trane, Wayne Shorter, CTI records, and so forth. When I graduated in 2001, I moved to New York and went to the New School in the village. While there, I scored my first touring gig with Pat Martino. From there, I went on to work with Jeremy Pelt, Wallace Rooney, Greg Osby, and several cats on the scene around town, like Chris Cheek, Jonathan Kriesberg, Lage Lund, Leron Thomas, Greg Tardy, and many others. The majority of my career has been as a side man, so I've had the pleasure of working with a lot of amazing solo artists and bands since then, on the road and in the studio.
At some point, I want to say around 2006 or 07, I met Robin MacMillan through the guitarist Ryan Scott. We played a bit together but didn't really hit it off until we built a studio in Brooklyn with a group of our friends in 2010. I started playing on Robin's sessions he was producing, and he started playing on mine as well. It was also around this time I discovered exotica music. Robin was already into it as he is quite well versed and had one of the largest vinyl collections of my friends at the time. I started introducing some Les Baxter and Martin Denny tunes into my repertoire and at some point decided I wanted to get more serious about it. In late 2015, I started arranging a bunch of classic exotica material like “Bahia”, “Caravan”, “Poinciana”, “Ebb Tide”, etc. I presented them to Robin, and he arranged sketches of the percussion that were later hashed out with our other drummer/percussionist, Bill Campbell. We eventually booked a show at Threes Brewing, assembled a band, and it was a hit. We played a handful of shows after that in 2016-17, but the band got shifted to the back burner as everyone was busy with other projects.
2022 saw the release of your officially full length LP entitled “Gung Ho”. What was the approach and particular process to writing and recording this album? It seems you really tapped into something special with that early release, bringing to life the many influences of jazz, 70s fusion and the city’s nightly vibe.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, all we had was time time time. In late 2019, I had been wanting to start work on a more classic style record similar to the easy listening Capitol Records recordings of the late 50s/early 60s. I already had some sketches down on the piano, and started expanding them and recording at home early into the pandemic. At this point, the record was all synthesizers, pianos, organs, and some percussion. I ended up replacing all the synths with strings, brass, and woodwinds. Which all ended up being done remotely as quarantine was still in place. For instance, Christina Cortin played violin and viola on the record. I'd send her the string parts I had written along with the recording I had so far, and she would overdub the parts and send them back to me. That was more or less the process for everyone who played on it. Robin, Jake Silver, who played bass, and me did manage to get into the bunker recording studio for a day that summer and get some basics laid down, but that was the only day any of us were in a room together playing music.
Jumping ahead to your most recent effort, “Sandy Legs”, which was released earlier this week. I’d love to know some of the backstory to tracks like “Water Bear”, “Tropicana” and the album’s epic opener “Night Blooming Jasmine”.
Sure! When I'm composing songs, each one is always a little different. But a lot of times it starts with an idea I'll have stuck in my head or a motif or vamp I’ll get into when I'm just messing around at the piano. At the moment, I usually record it on my voice memo app on the I-phone, and it starts to grow from there. "Water Bear" actually started with the piano part played at the very end of the recording after everyone drops out. I had just been looping that pattern before the song came to fruition. Then came the bassline and drums. The melody kind of just wrote itself, I didn't spend a lot of time getting fussy with it. "Tropicana" was partly inspired by Henry Mancini's doubling of string parts and Hammond organ. Like a simple harmony that moves parallel along a melody line, like in the second half of "Blue Mantilla" from his record, "Mr Lucky Goes Latin”. As for "Night Blooming Jasmine", there's a pretty viby drum machine you'll hear on the track, which is the Maestro Rhythm King. Sly Stone used them, Shuggie Otis, Little Beaver, you've probably heard them on records. Drum machines like this can sometimes ease composing because not only do they provide an instant rhythm track/base to start with, they sound so good just on their own. I'll often start demos with it and revisit the drum parts later with Robin. This song was recorded back in 2020. It was like 98% finished, but it didn't have the double time feel in the percussion yet which Rob suggested. He added that when we revisited it during the sessions for “Sandy Legs” back in February. It subtly changed the feeling in a good way. When we recorded it, Rob and I were huddled around one mic, he played the bongo part, I tapped out the tambourine pattern and that was basically it. He added a few more choice parts, but I felt it really hooked up the song.
I understand your gearing up for some dates throughout October. What are you most excited about to exploring and express with the new material as well as the overall landscape of performing live? Is there anything else you would like to share further with the readers?
Yes! We’ll mostly be playing shows in California around the Bay Area, So-Cal, and later in October upstate NY, PA, and a hometown release show, of course. We'll be slightly paired down for the West Coast portion to just keys, bass, drums, and percussion. I think this will be a really cool way to showcase music. For the last record, "Gung Ho", I didn't really think about playing the material live while recording it. That turned out to be quite a challenge as each song on the record is fully arranged with an orchestra, several keyboards, multiple percussion parts, you get the idea. And there were a lot of shows on that tour where it was just a trio or even solo. I worked it out in the end, but for this record, I intentionally composed the songs so that they could be played in most ensemble formats. So, even though the record has what sounds like 8+ people per track, I could sit down at the piano and play you most of these solo. Or perform it with a trio or, in this case, a quartet. I think the material speaks for itself.
