Dan Frankel provides a mesmerizing blend of Americana, blues and jazz, using the banjo to endear the listener to this original music.

12 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Folk Blues, BLUES: Jazzy Blues



Details:
Dan Frankel has been playing the banjo and other instruments since the age of thirteen. Originally playing bluegrass, Dan has tried to move the banjo beyond the narrow genre of bluegrass toward the direction of blues and jazz. Dan has played solo and with various bands over the past 25 years. While attending Reed College in Portland Oregon, he would often play bars and coffeehouses solo or with guitar accompaniment. Living in Alaska in 1988-1989, Dan played banjo in the Valdez band Mudfish Pie. In 1989 he traveled the world to climb mountains, playing his banjo at 20,000 feet on Mt. Hiunchuli in the Himalayas, entertaining crowds in Nepali bus stops and New Delhi train stations, eventually taking his climbing gear and banjo to Argentina and Chile. A rock climbing accident in 1990 grounded Dan in Salt Lake City for the better part of 1990 to recover, where he remained for a decade to study electrical engineering and receive a Ph.D. in atmospheric physics at the University of Utah. While in graduate school Dan played in several bands, including a seventies style rock band called Sea of Jones, a folk band called Crighkey!, and a satisfying but short lived band called Quagmire in which Dan was able to realize many of the musical ideas eventually expressed in âAdjustmentsâ.
In the year 2000, Dan and his wife Renate left Salt Lake for Tucson, Arizona, where he had landed a job as an Electrical Engineer. His musical interests collided with his technical interests and a love of mathematics, when he began doing research into the acoustical properties of the banjo using finite element computer simulations. Dan continues to live in Tucson with his wife and two daughters, where he composes new music, does technical research and pursues various other creative endeavors.