artist info

John Pizzarelli’s most recent album, Double Exposure (2012), focuses on two distinct styles to make a single fine recording. The album is a collection of tunes by some of the great pop songwriters of John’s generation that are framed squarely within traditional jazz arrangements. "I didn't want to just cover these songs, but rather find a way to present them that was unusual and interesting,'" says John.

John is a world-renowned jazz guitarist and singer, called “hip with a wink” by Town & Country, “madly creative” by the Los Angeles Times, and “the genial genius of the guitar” by The Toronto Star. When he performed with his wife, singer/actress Jessica Molaskey, and his father, guitar legend Bucky Pizzarelli, they were labeled “the First Family of Cool” by the San Francisco Chronicle and “the von Trapps on Martinis” by The New Yorker. After his recent smash success with the Boston Pops, he was hailed by the Boston Globe for “reinvigorating the Great American Songbook and re-popularizing jazz.” And the Seattle Times called him “a tour de force” and “a rare entertainer of the old school.” Before a recent show in the northwest, the local paper quipped, “John Pizzarelli is so impossibly cool, he shouldn’t be legally allowed to enter Oregon.” Pizzarelli has established himself as one of the prime interpreters of the Great American Songbook and beyond, bringing to his work the cool jazz flavor of his brilliant guitar playing and singing.

For more than seven decades, the legendary Bucky Pizzarelli has had a stellar career. He was a fixture in jazz and the studios since the early ‘50s. The list of big bands and vocalists with whom Bucky has performed and recorded reads like a veritable Who’s Who of Jazz. One of the era’s most solid rhythm players, Pizzarelli was in high demand, playing and touring with Benny Goodman, Zoot Sims, Vaughn Monroe, Bud Freeman, and Stephane Grappelli, and, later, recording with George Van Eps, Carl Kress and George Barnes. His superior mastery of the seven-string guitar is unparalleled. The beloved guitarist has developed a very personal style that sets him apart. A superior guitarist appreciated by swing musicians in particular, Bucky Pizzarelli has been a fixture in jazz and the studios since the early '50s. Self-taught, Pizzarelli has long been a master of the seven-string guitar.