{"id":2446492,"date":"2019-07-18T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-18T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=309511"},"modified":"2019-07-18T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T22:00:00","slug":"jazz-guitarist-john-pizzarelli-on-sinatra-nat-king-cole-and-playing-the-jas-cafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/jazz-guitarist-john-pizzarelli-on-sinatra-nat-king-cole-and-playing-the-jas-cafe\/","title":{"rendered":"Jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli on Sinatra, Nat King Cole and playing the JAS Caf\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"
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John Pizzarelli<\/strong>
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Musical dexterity is John Pizzarelli\u2019s forte. How else can you define a major strength of this jazz guitarist whose career dates back to 1980 and includes a string of albums that have found him paying homage to a broad array of influences?<\/p>\n

Along with expected nods to giants like Duke Ellington and legendary Great American Songbook composers Richard Rodgers and Johnny Mercer, the New Jersey native has also tipped his cap to more contemporary artists, including The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Steely Dan and Tom Waits. Over the past two years, Pizzarelli has paid homage to a pair of major influences, the Chairman of the Board (Frank Sinatra) and Nat King Cole. The 2017 release, \u201cSinatra & Jobim @ 50,\u201d was a nod to the storied 1967 album \u201cFrancis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim.\u201d Having worked with Jobim\u2019s grandson, Daniel, on the 2004 \u201cBossa Nova\u201d album, Pizzarelli reached out to his longtime friend for this project, which not only found them revisiting numbers from the original Sinatra album, including \u201cBaubles, Bangles and Beads,\u201d \u201cDindi\u201d and \u201cI Concentrate On You,\u201d but a pair of bossa nova-flavored originals.<\/p>\n

Now Pizzarelli has marked the 100th birthday of the late Cole with the February release of \u201cFor Centennial Reasons: 100 Year Salute to Nat King Cole,\u201d an album that features the Pizzarelli Trio performing a selection of classic songs by the legendary vocalist. He\u2019ll bring the Cole tribute and more to the JAS Caf\u00e9 at the Aspen Art Museum for two shows Friday.<\/p>\n

Having grown up as the son of renowned session guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, who himself continues to play gigs, it\u2019s easy to see how the younger musician went down his diverse career path. Sharing a home with two older sisters meant hearing plenty of Beatles records, which would often vie for playing time on the family hi-fi alongside discs by the likes of Wes Montgomery, Dick Haymes, Count Basie and of course, Sinatra. Oftentimes, these were recordings his father played on, although according to Pizzarelli, his father was rather low-key about his day job.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother found all the books from all the places that (my dad) played in the 1960s,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are all these date books and it\u2019s mostly just studios \u2014 it\u2019s never really even the artists,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will say something like, \u2018Columbia, 30 Street,\u2019 which is where they recorded the Tony Bennett, Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis records. He didn\u2019t even have the artist names next to the studios. Only Dion and the Belmonts are who we know who the dates are for, and that\u2019s around 1958.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pizzarelli, the son, got his start when he was handed a tenor banjo at the age of 6. With two uncles who both played the instrument, lessons ensued at Victor\u2019s House of Music in Paterson, New Jersey, where one of them worked. While tablature from the \u201cElton John Songbook\u201d spurred Pizzarelli to switch from banjo to guitar, it would be other old-school instrumentalists like George Van Epps, Nat King Cole sideman Oscar Moore and George Barnes that inspired him to make his debut with 1983\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m Hip (Please Don\u2019t Tell My Father).\u201d In subsequent years, Pizzarelli toured extensively and collaborated with myriad artists. But for him, the most intriguing times came when he performed live with Paul McCartney and Sinatra on separate occasions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d opened 18 concerts for (Frank Sinatra) in 1993. We did five or six in Germany and the rest in the United States. We played Atlanta, Saratoga, the Garden State Arts Center and Aurora, Illinois. Then we did a week in Atlantic City, where I did get to meet him,\u201d Pizzarelli recalled. \u201cHaving also done a major gig with Paul McCartney, I say both of them had the best food, McCartney on the vegetarian side \u2014 you would totally be a vegetarian if you could always eat with Paul McCartney. With Sinatra, these are big productions. I don\u2019t think we played for less than 8,000 people in all those concerts except for in Atlantic City. What was always going on was just stunning. From a production standpoint, (longtime Sinatra associate) Hank Cattaneo did such a great job. You never had to talk to a soundman to tell him how you wanted it done. Everything was perfect and wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Variety is the spice of life for the Garden State native and so it goes with his touring life. This summer, it\u2019s only logical that he\u2019ll be performing a show with his trio based around the \u201cFor Centennial Reasons\u201d album, which features Pizzarelli on guitar and vocals, Mike Karn on double bass and Konrad Paszkudzki on piano.<\/p>\n

This is hardly Pizzarelli\u2019s first occasion where he\u2019s focused on the song catalog of Cole. The new release is his third album to have found the guitarist performing songs by Cole. It follows \u201cP.S. Mr. Cole\u201d in 1998 and 1994\u2019s \u201cDear Mr. Cole.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the current tour features his own trio, Pizzarelli has frequently done shows where he has presented an all-Nat King Cole program with the Ramsey Lewis Trio.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The show with Lewis) a fun thing. Ramsey plays a bunch of great piano solos that are associated with Nat, and I sing all the Nat Cole things. We not only cover \u2018Straighten Up and Fly Right\u2019 and \u2018Route 66,\u2019 but there\u2019s also \u2018Unforgettable\u2019 and some of the pop standards in there, too,\u201d Pizzarelli explained. \u201cSo, it really is a fun evening and sort of unique to Ramsey\u2019s style too, which is great. \u2026We\u2019ve done this all over and even played this show in Alaska.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Pizzarelli Musical dexterity is John Pizzarelli\u2019s forte. How else can you define a major strength of this jazz guitarist whose career dates back to 1980 and includes a string of albums that have found him paying homage to a broad array of influences? Along with expected nods to giants like Duke Ellington and legendary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2446492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 15:02:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}