Listen to WBGO special jazz from the archives, all about Franck Amsallem

THE SHORT STORY

    Franck Amsallem has released eight CDs under his name,  as well as a major collaboration on Blue Note, "New York Stories", and has been on the scene as a pianist and composer for over 35 years. While living in NY, his sideman credits included some of the greatest names in jazz and beyond: Gerry Mulligan, Charles Lloyd, Jerry Bergonzi, Joe Chambers, Maria Schneider, as well as Gary Bartz, Sonny Fortune, Bobby Watson,  Rick Margitza, Tim Ries,  Blood Sweat and Tears, and Harry Belafonte. He has played many of the most important venues and festivals throughout the U.S. and Europe, including the the Pori, Molde, Red Sea, Parc Floral de Paris, Nice, and Antibes-Juan-les-pins Jazz Festival. The recipient of major awards (NEA composition fellowship, ASCAP award for young composers, Fondation de la Vocation, FACE cultural exchange) in both the U.S. and France, Franck has toured Germany, Mexico, Central and South America, South Africa, as well as performing major concerts in Holland, Portugal, Israel, Croatia, Spain, the Czech republic, Armenia, Bahrein and Lebanon. As a composer, he has conducted the WDR and written for the National Jazz Orchestra of France (O.N.J.), the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, and several symphony orchestras.

    In 2002, Franck returned to France and settled in Paris. Recent tours include 23 concerts in Latin America, the Emirates, a five-city tour of China (solo), Algeria, Holland, Belgium, Israel, Portugal, Peru and a solo concert in Vilnius. Franck was a featured performer at the JazzaVienne festival in a six-piano program composed by Martial Solal, and was then invited a second time to Algiers with his trio. His newest opus, "Amsallem Sings", showcases his talents as a pianist-singer, featuring 12 songs from the Great American Songbook.

THE LONGER STORY

    Franck Amsallem was born in 1961 in Oran, Algeria, and grew up in Nice, France. His parents, having repatriated the family piano, started him on classical piano at the age of seven, but he gave them up a few years later. The large family and the cramped apartment weren’t at all propitious surroundings for the old teacher’s stale lessons. Still, the family owned a large collection of 45 RPM records where Ray Charles mixed with Glenn Miller and the Four Tops. In all logic then, he was seduced in adolescence, by the sound of the blues and swing, and started taking music lessons at the Nice Conservatory where, considered too old for the piano (!), he signed up for classical saxophone and soon earned a first prize.

    But the piano remained his first love. Soon the news spread on the Cote d’Azur, and he worked in Monte Carlo, learning hundreds, maybe thousands, of jazz standards — "I have always, above all, loved all American music," — and in 1979, at 17 years of age, John Lewis chose him to be his student for a French documentary, "La leçon de musique". Having jammed offstage at the Nice jazz festival with Jerry Bergonzi, Mike Brecker, Arnie Lawrence and Richie Cole, he was then encouraged to move to the U.S. to hone his skills and learn. He made the move without a blink and entered Berklee College in 1981. "At 19, I did not see myself backing up pop singers in Paris and playing jazz on the side, which was what everyone was doing then. Like the song says, it was All or Nothing at All."

    Franck stayed three years in Boston and earned numerous awards, performing in Herb Pomeroy’s big band and attending his composition and arranging classes. While at Berklee Franck didn't study jazz piano, in Boston or elsewhere:
"I think I took only one jazz piano lesson and didn't particularly enjoy it, in other words whatever I had to discover would have to be on my own". Still the longing for more excitement was always there and at the beginning of 1986, he moved to New York City and attended the Manhattan School of Music where he earned a Master's degree in composition.

    "There are many good pianists out there, but good pianists who are equally good composers — that is what makes the difference". He took lessons with Bob Brookmeyer a major mentor,  and studied classical piano with Phil Kawin. Their influence stayed with him for a long time. And the experience added up, the true New York Jazz Experience, as an accompanist, and then as a leader. "To learn the art form of jazz like the greatest have done before you. To confront your skills with the best musicians of their time". Franck won second prize at Jacksonville’s Great American Jazz competition.

    Since then,  Franck has performed in many of the major festivals, from Antibes to Pori, Nice to Molde and has backed Gerry Mulligan, Charles Lloyd and Harry Belafonte, recorded with Bobby Watson, Roy Hargrove and Joshua Redman, performed in the bands of Maria Schneider, Rick Margitza, Jerry Bergonzi and Joe Chambers, has composed numerous pieces for big band, including recent commissions from the WDR, and pieces for strings and for chamber orchestra. His suite "Nuits" for jazz quartet and string orchestra has been performed in Romania, Bulgaria, France and Los Angeles. "I love the variety of situations, learning as you go along, challenging every solution, nothing ever preset."