Frank Pilato is not only an outstanding soloist, capable of delivering performances of extraordinary technical skill and emotional depth, but also a consummate sideman, demonstrating impeccable taste, adaptability, and a rare ability to elevate any ensemble he joins. Guitar Player magazine, March 2012
David Shelley: Guitarist for Cher, Richard Marx, and many others.
Frank Pilato is one of my favourite guitarists. I haven’t seen or heard anyone play like him in a long time—not since my dear friend and musical twin Derek Frigo, honestly. His playing brings me renewed optimism and inspiration, a feeling about music that has been scarce for many years. I thank you for that.
Brent David Fraser: Hollywood actor & musician.
I just listened to Yesterday Afternoon by guitarist and friend Frank Pilato, an extraordinary musician with an impressive legato technique. I’m thrilled to feature Yesterday Afternoon on my radio show. Jeff Young, Music Without Boundaries, April 2018
Jeff Young: Former Megadeth guitarist.
The Modal Chromatization Method, developed by Frank Pilato, exerts a significant influence within the fusion genre, providing musicians with a powerful tool to expand their harmonic and melodic language.
Umberto Fiorentino: Guitarist & educator.
Frank is, of course, an exceptional guitarist and composer. Few can see as far as he does, tapping into the purest source of inspiration to craft a voice that is truly unique and unmistakable. Frank is far more than an extraordinary guitarist; he is a visionary, a creator of mysterious and kaleidoscopic sonic worlds where time and space bend infinitely into a singular sonic experience.
Gianluca Ferro: Guitarist and composer.
Frank is not merely a musician; he is a seer of sound, a virtuoso whose every note is deliberately chosen and sculpted with precision. His phrasing is measured yet fluid, each passage building with the inevitability of a crescendo that erupts into a torrent of musical brilliance, leaving the listener suspended between awe and wonder. Beyond his extraordinary artistry, Frank is a kindred soul, a “Mirtamico”, whose presence resonates deeply, bridging the realms of friendship, inspiration, and profound creative kinship.
William Dotto: Guitarist and composer.
Listening to Frank Pilato play and discussing with him the deeper meaning of artistic experience, the first thing that emerges clearly is his humanity. This is no minor detail, for only those capable of delving into the most hidden corners of the human condition, with its soaring heights and its abyssal depths, can hope to tell us something authentic, to inject beauty into a world increasingly parched. In Frank and his music coexist, Nietzschean in spirit, the Dionysian fire—the chaos that fuels the creative process—and the Apollonian ability to harness it, to contain it within a form: pŷr and logos, in other words. His notes blaze with intensity, yet are supported by a rationality capable of giving them direction. In my view, this is the deepest reason that Frank’s musical exploration remains alive and vibrant, steering clear of the sterility into which an exclusively logical approach might fall, and simultaneously avoiding the raw, unstructured instinctuality whose result would be a chaotic, shapeless mass (not to be confused with Informalism), devoid of any aesthetic interest—an outcome that, unfortunately, some proponents of certain “back-to-the-roots” tendencies romantically imagine.
Alessandro Seravalle: Composer, multi-instrumentalist and autor.
I love Frank Pilato, his playing is amazing and truly unique. Hey Frank, you’ve got a new fan starting today!
Tom Quayle: Guitarist, educator and composer.
Frank Pilato, far from belonging to a landscape of desolate musical vulgarity typical of the most crude massification, is instead a powerful and inspired musician in his originality. A cultivated musician, and in terms of an original language, understood as authentically his own, Frank Pilato can without doubt be considered a master and a leader of his own school.
Paolo Volpato: Guitarist and composer.
The memorable guitar solo by Frank Pilato in “So We Are” by Jolly Rox—for which I often receive compliments myself… I must admit, sometimes it’s actually Frank Pilato playing the guitar.
Joey Zalla: Guitarist and band leader of Jolly Rox.
Maestro Frank Pilato’s method allows us to explore functional, avant-garde, and historically respectful harmony in a profound and conscious way, a harmony that opens the doors to further discovery, both outward and inward, into the infinite universe of improvisation. A true must-have. So, “Stories” is the essence of Frank Pilato’s soul: complex, disciplined, curious, and full of dreams and ambitions. “Stories” is the musical summa of an exceptional artist—a record in which each track clearly and virtuosically demonstrates what music can achieve when expressed through the hands of a talented musician who respects the language of bebop, rock, and fusion. “Stories” is something that any lover of art, in all its forms, cannot and must not overlook.
Federico Gallo: Pianist, composer, educator.