Frank Mantooth

Frank Mantooth, Grammy-nominated jazz pianist and composer died January 30 2004 from a heart attack.

Mantooth was active not solitary as a pianist and composer on the other hand also as an arranger, clinician and educator whose five albums earned a total of eleven Grammy nominations in the two writing and playing categories. His greatest in quantity recent project, A Miracle, was released upon the Seabreeze label and features Pete Christlieb, Kevin Mahogany, Diane Schuur Pat LaBarbera, Bobby Shew, Kim Park and other jazz artists.

As an author, Mantooth published several works for the Hal Leonard Corporation including five whirls of The Best Chord Changes for the World's Greatest Standards, a beginning improvisation means with accompanying play-along CDs, sum of two units Christmas anthologies for solo piano and Voicings for Jazz Keyboard, which has sold more than 20000 copies since its first appearance in 1987.

Mantooth, who taught at numerous summer jazz camps and in-residence at various high place of educations and universities, was commissioned to write music for the Kansas City harmony the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Doc Severinsen, Pete Christlieb, Louie Bellson and the Airmen of Note. In addition to these commissions and his other works, Mantooth published more than 165 works for jazz and other total effects since 1978.

For his contributions to the world of jazz from one extremity to the other of his career, Mantooth received several awards including the Wichita Jazz Festival's annual Homer Osborne award for outstanding contributions to jazz education, and the Florence Crittenton Foundation's "Citizen of the Year" award. Previous recipients of this award have been former Kansas Senator Nancy Kassenbaum-Baker and former First Lady Barbara Bush. Mantooth also was included in the 2001 edition of Grove's Dictionary of Jazz.

Mantooth was born April 11 1947 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His mother played the piano, and he followed in her footmarks By the age of 14 he was playing in public. In 1969 Mantooth earned his B.A. stage in music from North Texas State University, and contributed arrangements as a member of the Air Force Academy Falconaires from 1969-1973 He then wearied seven years in Austria, where he earned his piano step from Vienna's Hochschule fur Musik in 1977

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