e studied piano from age four and a half with the teachers Wilhelm Kollischer, Hugo Balzo and Santiago Baranda Reyes.

When he was studying law at school (Derecho y Notariado), he won a scholarship of the American Field Service which allowed him to live and study in New York, where he graduated as bachelor at age seventeen. He studied music with Jim Odrich and furthered his music studies at the Berklee College of Boston.

When he came back to Montevideo he made his debut on TV at age 18 in Telecataplum along with his jazz group, Los Chicago Stompers. He joined that famous group of humorists who appeared on the TV of Argentina, Uruguay and Chile for over 40 years, with shows like Telecataplum, Capitán Cañones, Comicolor, La Calle Feliz, Frente a frente, Rapicómicos, Decalegrón and Hiperhumor.

He was a featured partner of Héctor Larrea, Juan Verdaguer and Hugo Sofovich in Buenos Aires. He was musical director of the RCA, Sondor and Tonodisc labels in Argentina, as well as of the TV channels 7 ATC, Canal 9, Canal 11 and Canal 13 of Buenos Aires and the TV channels 4, 10 and 12 of Montevideo (Uruguay). He was also director of Canal 5 TV Nacional del Uruguay.

For 26 years he represented Uruguay as musical director of the OTI international festivals. He was also musical director and producer of the Costa a Costa and Parque del Plata song festivals.

He is emcee and producer of his programs Piano Piano on TVEO; Frade en Carve, for 12 years on that radio station in Montevideo. Now he is general manager of Radio Oriental AM 770 and on it he emcees his program Frade con permiso.

His concert alongside Astor Piazzolla is well-remembered in which Frade conducted the latter and other seventy musicians: «That was in 1982, at the Palacio Peñarol, then I was thirty-nine years old. When you’re young, you don’t know what you do…» At that great concert the Suite de Tango that Piazzolla had written for the RAI was played,.

With the Tango Sur trio, which also includes Mario Núñez and Daniel Lagarde, a style is established and they bring excellent versions of classic tangos. Another more exotic proposal was TangoCaribe, along with Manolo Sánchez aka El Cubanísimo, which released renderings of tangos mixed with Caribbean rhythms.

He shared the bill with great artists of all genres, such as the great guitarist Luis Salinas, who accompanied him when he celebrated his 50-year career at a great concert at the Teatro Solís of Montevideo. In his career he also played with Mono Villegas, Edison Bordón, Panchito Nolé, Julio Cobelli and accompanied several artists.

He was music director and produced, in 2008, the recording of the album Libre, cut by the female singer Valeria Lima, a figure of Uruguayan tango.

His latest album was Tango desatado, in which he plays great classics allowing much space to improvisation, along with the virtuoso Uruguayan bandoneonist Raúl Jaurena and the excellent Argentine bass player Pablo Aslán. «What we achieved was really impressive».

In 2012 he was appointed Ciudadano Ilustre de la Ciudad de Montevideo (Honorable Citizen of the city of Montevideo).