Frank Vignola and Vinny Raniolo

[jdgm]

I have to tell everyone about the wonderful guitar duo of Frank Vignola and Vinny Raniolo, 2 exceptionally fine players who I saw last night at the West End Centre in Aldershot, Hants U.K.

 

Vignola is in his late 40s and looks a bit like Robbie Robertson meets Hank Marvin. He plays incredible guitar - was in Les Paul's quartet for some years I believe, and is a very entertaining showman. He played a Thorell guitar, beautiful looking and sounding. Enormous chops and the other guy - Raniolo, younger, plays a Collings and does most of the rhythm parts, he doesn't even look at it, jaw dropping - is almost better. Both used tiny AER cube-shaped amps which sounded great. As well as being stunning virtuoso guitar playing it was also pure fun entertainment. Very, very cool indeed. I haven't seen anything that good since the days of great American jazz guitarists who toured the U.K. in the 70s and 80s and I can't recommend these 2 highly enough.

 

http://frankvignola.com/videos/

[Kaiser Bill]

Frank has some very educational videos on the Tube...they have helped my playing a lot.

[badbluesplayer]

Yes - I love those guys. Frank's a big proponent of playing up and down the neck vs across the neck. He says he learned it from Les and Django. Here's Frank and Andreas Oberg, another Gypsy Jazzer -

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nceGuWV0Ps4

[geeterpicker]

You should check out the DVD Frank Vignola and the Rhythm Machine live at the Sheldon. It's very, very entertaining. Comes with a DVD and CDs of the show. Check out this sample.

[zigzag]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKpILqurFME