April - May -June 2008

Made In Australia CD with Ric Fierabracci and Virgil Donati now available on the FG website. It's also available as a download. New FG Best Of Albums are out. Best of Jazz and Rock Fusion, The Acoustic Side and The Smooth Side. Also the All- Acoustic Album - Natural High - out now.

Concert With Class, Monster Licks, Modes No More Mystery, Chopbuilder ""DVDs"" available!!

Hello Everyone,

Well, let's see...the big news is that I have withdrawn from L.A. Music Academy for several reasons which I will not go into here in this blog, suffice to say that it was time to move on. So, if anyone was thinking of going and expecting me there, please take note that I am no longer teaching there either and that I no longer endorse the school in ANY way. I am happy to say that I am in negotiations with a chain of schools in Italy to license some of the curriculum I wrote and will teach at those schools a couple of times a year. I will make that announcement once the contracts are signed.

I just got back from Australia with Billy Cobham. It was an incredibly fun project. It was a septet plus the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra conducted and arranged by Colin Towns playing the music of Mahavishnu Orchestra. It was all part of the Adelaide Jazz Festival and for those who had the fortune to see it were dazzled..I was dazzled myself. The music was very challenging but everyone, including the amazing players in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra played the @^%$ out of the music. I really enjoyed the experience of being surrounded by all those wonderful textures from the orchestra...must write for orchestra some day...

I also did another album with Akira Jimbo along with Abe Laboriel and Otmaro Ruiz. It was fun and I think it's about to come out called "Get Up". This is now the second album we've all done together..all done in two days...mostly first takes and some pretty burning moments...

Next up and extending all the way into August is a series of clinics for Yamaha in the USA and Mexico promoting their new acoustic guitars. I am looking forward to those...check the tour info page to see if I'll be in your area...come and say hello!

Folks, don't forget that a lot of my music is available here at www.frankgambale.com as downloads. Also there the album mixes minus guitar and for the newer albums minus bass and drums and keyboards too. There are also music charts in pdf format...especially for the album Raison D'etre where I introduced my new tuning to the world. The charts reveal the tuning and how to play those tunes...

All of the music minus one up for Natural High is up as pdfs also. Check out the notes!!!

The new Yamaha guitar model won't be available for another year maybe two...most likely NAMM of 2010...I have the first prototype in my hands and have used it on a few gigs already and it's awesome...I LOVE IT!! There's a couple of little mods to do still but essentially it's where it needs to be. Probably one more prototype should do it. You guys are in for a treat...eventually!!! It's the best guitar I have ever been involved with...simply awesome but again, sadly won't see the light of day for a year or two more.

Check out the re-released Centrifugal Funk album available on the website.

Thanks to everyone who has bought the Tone Navigator TN-1000 by Carvin. It has proved popular and that's just great. Tone Navigator preamp sounds wonderful both through an amp and direct. I have given it a good thrashing on recent tours and it has worked flawlessly. Everyone who heard it couldn't believe that there were no tubes in my rack! Check it out at www.carvin.com.

Don't forget folks that the bonus tracks from both Passages and Thinking Out Loud which, until now, were unavailable are also available for downloading...just look closely on the pages for those two albums and you'll see...

Check out the 4 live concerts on the downloading page...http://www.frankgambale.com/album.php. These are only available online!! It's like having 4 new live albums. This downloading thing has me very inspired to make available things that would not previously be made available. The 4 concerts are from my recent trio tour in from March and April 2004.. http://www.frankgambale.com/album.php

The first one is live at Fasching Jazz Club in Stockholm, Sweden. The song "A Little Something" has a special guest who sat in on sax...check it out soon. The quality is very good because it was to be broadcast on radio. The recording are live from the board and I thought they sounded good enough to release to the internet....I have lots of stuff coming soon folks...isn't the internet amazing!!!...

For those who don't already know I'm having a blast with a new tuning I've discovered......I can't believe it only took 40 years to figure it out.....it's VERY cool in the sense of being able to play close intervals like the piano without little or no difficulty. You can even play 4 chromatic notes simultaneously if you want!!! You can also play it like a normal guitar if you want chord shape-wise. New territory...............again check out the transcriptions on the website which clearly defines the Gambale tuning used.

Ken Dapron and John Gaudesi at Yamaha Guitar Development built a double neck guitar for me which I used on Raison D'etre plus I've been playing it on tour with my trio.

All my instructional videos are now all on DVD and the prices have all been slashed to $29.95...you can t beat that. Thanks to all you folks out there for replacing your worn out videos for new DVDs. These DVDs have bonus footage from the Concert With Class Video plus other goodies too.

Ciao for now,

Later,

FG