Jazz Articles about Bucky Pizzarelli

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Bucky Pizzarelli and Frank Vignola: Moonglow

by Andrew Velez
September 21, 2005

At least as evidenced by this collection of guitar duets, nothing but a mere few decades would seem to separate Bucky Pizzarelli (b. 1925) and Frank Vignola (b. 1965). Pizzarelli's lengthy resume includes years as a studio musician beginning in the '50s, touring with Benny Goodman, a celebrated guitar partnership with George Barnes, and popular stops along the way with Bobby Hackett and Bob Wilber, among others. Vignola, playing a six-string archtop guitar (and sometimes banjo), has always been a ...

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Bucky Pizzarelli: Flashes: A Lifetime in Words and Music

by Joel Roberts
November 8, 2004

Veteran guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli's latest is a master class in the art of the popular American song as interpreted by someone who's spent a lifetime perfecting the language of swing. Combining solo guitar and spoken reminiscences, Pizzarelli retraces his long career through exquisite renditions of standards associated with colleagues and mentors like Henry Mancini, Richard Rodgers, Benny Goodman, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. He also proves his dexterity beyond straight swing by tackling a trio of early jazz ...

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Ruby Braff: I Hear Music

by AAJ Staff
November 1, 2002

Ruby Braff has compiled an album of sheer pleasure in quintet work. His well shaped cornet sound, and the interplay of the instruments through each cut is a shining example of mastery of pacing and a sense of timing. Within each of the cuts is a conversation between the instruments where each one says their version of the melody in turn. Cut 2, a medley of “Chicago” and “My Kind of Town” also has hints of Loesser’s “Baby, It’s Cold ...

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Bucky Pizzarelli: One Morning in May

by Mike Neely
October 1, 2001

One Morning in May is Bucky Pizzarelli?s second exquisite solo guitar outing for Arbors Records. This disc follows April Kisses, reviewed in AAJ?s August 2000 general review listing (see archives). Both recordings focus on standards, older standards, mostly from the 1920s to the1940s. These two CDs belong among the essential recordings of jazz guitar.

On One Morning in May Pizzarelli plays in a heartfelt, swing style. The line-up of composers includes Bix Beiderbecke, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Richard ...

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Bucky Pizzarelli: April Kisses

by Mike Neely
August 1, 2000

Bucky Pizzarelli's April Kisses opens a door to a musical era when the jazz guitar was a solo and duet instrument of lively refinement. This is the pre-electric, pre-Charlie Christian era of Eddie Lang, Carl Kress, Django Reinhardt, and George Van Eps. Pizzarelli follows Van Eps' innovation of adding a bass string to his guitar which enriches the self-accompaniment possibilities of the instrument. This 7th string helps to create a delicately swinging acoustic guitar sound as distinctive as Spanish guitar, ...

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Bucky Pizzarelli: April Kisses

by David Adler
January 1, 2000

The acoustic guitar of Bucky Pizzarelli is not that of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, nor that of John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell, and Lenny Breau. It is the acoustic archtop guitar of little-known early jazzers such as Dick McDonough, Eddie Lang, Carl Kress, and George Van Eps. On this beautiful session, not only is there no amp “" there isn't even a pickup. There's just Bucky, his custom Benedetto seven-string (with an assuredly astronomical price tag), and a microphone. Listening ...

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Bucky and John Pizzarelli: Contrasts

by C. Michael Bailey
March 1, 1999

Coincidence. This disc crossed my desk at the same time as the latest issue of Jazz Notes, which has a book review of Terrance Ripmaster's biography of Bucky Pizzarelli, Bucky Pizzarelli: A Life in Music.. The father and son Pizzarelli, both having successful performing careers apart from one another, have again joined to record a duet disc. Contrasts may not be the most appropriate title for the disc as the two Pizzarellis have a perfectly empathic relationship with regards to ...