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Credited on more than 40 albums while still only 48 years old would be one definition of “prolific.” But for John Pizzarelli Jr., the better term might be “prelude.”
“Every record is a learning experience and you keep moving on, always hoping that the next one is going to be the best ever,” he said. “You try to make every record great because that is going to be your legacy. Even when I’ve finished a record that I am especially happy with, I like to think it will lead to something even better, not that I’m going to kick back and rest.”
Rest? Hardly. With all those albums on his resume, Mr. Pizzarelli will have plenty of material to draw from when he performs at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor this Saturday, November 29, at 8 p.m. There will be no Thanksgiving weekend vacation for the jazz guitarist ... nor does he want one.
“I do have a problem taking time off,” he admitted. “I got that from my father, who I think is still trying to schedule his first vacation. The closest I get is: we have a little cabin in upstate New York and I’ll try to schedule gigs easy to get to in July and August so my wife and my kids and I can live up there.” No doubt it helps one’s creativity and work ethic to have both in abundance in one’s family. Mr. Pizzarelli’s father is the legendary guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, and a frequent member of the band that performs with him is his brother, Martin Pizzarelli. And to sort of complete the circle, Mr. Pizzarelli has been married for 10 years to Jessica Molaskey, a singer with whom he has appeared at the Carlyle, Feinstein’s, and other nightclubs in New York, as well as venues around the U.S.
Mr. Pizzarelli was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and he grew up surrounded by music and musicians. Though he loved sports, and still does—he is a member of the Blowhards, the Red Sox Nation chapter in New York—there was little doubt that he was going to follow in his father’s footsteps, especially when he began playing the guitar at age 6.
“If my father had been a plumber, we’d be talking about the latest pipe fittings,” Mr. Pizzarelli said. “I always loved music and the people who were involved in it. The people my dad worked with were very interesting to me, and the only way I could get to know them better was to learn their musical language.”
In the competitive music business, if you don’t have the chops, it doesn’t matter that much what your father does. Though his style of singing has been compared to that of Harry Connick Jr., Mr. Pizzarelli has forged his own career as a guitarist, singer, songwriter, and even sideman. In addition to the albums he has recorded with his band, Mr. Pizzarelli has worked with a Who’s Who of pop and jazz greats: Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Clark Terry, George Shearing, and his father.
He counts them among his strongest influences “and let me put the Beatles and Billy Joel in there too,” Mr. Pizzarelli said. “And a name more people should know: Keely Smith,” referring to the former partner of Louis Prima, now 80, whom Mr. Pizzarelli and his wife have followed at the Carlyle and Birdland the last two years. “She’s a great pro,” he added. “And she remembers everything. Keely was one of our first guests on the show. She is one of the last ones of that great generation of singers still out there working. Her and Rosemary Clooney and Nat Cole are heroes to musicians of my generation.”
“The show” he refers to is “Radio Deluxe,” a two-hour program that is syndicated nationally on public radio. (Local listeners can find it on WLIU 88.3FM on Sundays from 1 to 3 p.m.) Using a sort of “welcome to our living room” approach, Mr. Pizzarelli and his wife offer the music they enjoy with some background on the artists thrown in for those who want to be jazz aficionados.
“Jessica and I were having a discussion of the music that really matters to us, and someone made a suggestion that such an ongoing discussion could be the basis of a show,” explained Mr. Pizzarelli about the origins of the program. “Next thing we knew we were in a studio giving it a shot. People started listening and we got into more and more markets, we became more comfortable doing it, and we finally got a sponsor who at least covered the costs of the show. We love making people know more about different kinds of music. A big influence on us is Jonathan Schwartz. I loved to listen to him talk about Richard Rodgers and Frank Sinatra and his own father, a great songwriter.”
“With a Song In My Heart: John Pizzarelli Sings the Music of Richard Rodgers” is the musician’s most recent CD. The tracks, as one might imagine, are covers of songs penned by the composer. If he can gather enough material, Mr. Pizzarelli would like to record a collection of original songs soon.
“It depends on how much my wife is bugging me,” he said about the composing process. “She could be working on lyrics for a long time, then she suddenly sticks them in my guitar case and keeps asking me when I’m going to write the music. I can write in hotel rooms, but I’m finding more and more that the cabin in the summer is the best place to crank the songs out.”
Mr. Pizzarelli’s show this Saturday will be preceded at 5 p.m. by WNYC’s “Jazz Inspired” radio program. (Tickets to both events can be obtained by calling 725-9500 or at baystreet.org.) He will be interviewed by Judy Carmichael, the stride pianist and Sag Harbor resident who has just released her own CD. Concerning his Saturday set list, Mr. Pizzarelli said he would draw on a previous experience.
“The last time I worked Sag Harbor we were playing all this new material during the first half of the show, and during the break I said to my band, ‘They don’t want to know from any of this stuff,’” he recalled. “We went back out and played ‘Paper Moon’ and ‘Route 66’ and all the standards, so I know now how to do the Bay Street Theatre.”
on Nov 23, 2008