Frank Carlberg

Frank Carlberg is a jazz pianist and composer from Helsinki, Finland, who is based in Brooklyn and active in the New York jazz scene. His music spans free jazz, jazz and post-bop, and he works across writing, performance and arranging.

Education and teaching

Carlberg studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he receives his bachelor’s degree, and later earns a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music. While at the conservatory, he comes under the influence of Paul Bley, Ran Blake, Geri Allen and Jimmy Giuffre, whose music and ideas shape his search for a personal style. He later teaches at both the New England Conservatory and Berklee College of Music.

Bands and projects

As a leader, Carlberg fronts several ensembles. The Frank Carlberg Quintet performs settings of texts, including poems. The Tivoli Trio plays an eclectic repertory of Carlberg compositions informed by cinematic and circus material. The Frank Carlberg Big Band performs original works alongside arrangements and re-compositions of standards and folk material. He is also a member of the Douglass Street Music Collective.

Recordings and composition

Carlberg’s first recording as a leader is Blind Drive, a trio album made up mostly of original compositions. His next release, Ugly Beauty, is a duo recording with vocalist Christine Correa and combines Indian and Finnish folk music, free improvisation, original pieces and jazz repertoire. The Crazy Woman marks an important stage in his work with poetry settings, with 11 original songs on texts by 20th-century poets including Jack Kerouac and Anna Akhmatova. The recording uses a quintet format that becomes central to later projects.

On Variations on a Summer Day, he sets Wallace Stevens’ poem as a 13-part cycle. In the Land of Art includes settings of poetry by Robert Creeley, Anselm Hollo, Kenneth Rexroth and others. His album State of the Union uses cut-up versions of The Bill of Rights, looped material and a setting of part of Bill Clinton’s grand jury testimony.

Notable collaborations

Among Carlberg’s significant collaborators are saxophonist Steve Lacy, trombonist Bob Brookmeyer and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler. One of his most sustained partnerships is with Finnish expatriate drummer and composer Klaus Suonsaari; together they record the duo albums Offering and Fallingwater. Carlberg is also a partner in Red Piano Records, an artist-run cooperative label.

Later work

The American Dream, released on Red Piano Records, is a 12-part song cycle with settings of Robert Creeley’s poetry and is commissioned by Chamber Music America. Carlberg also receives commissions to write for big bands, small ensembles, symphony orchestras and modern dance companies. He has further work associated with Fresh Sound Records’ The Sound of New York Jazz Underground, for which he writes “Heaven” and a re-composition of “I Got Rhythm”.