Pizzarelli Performs
John Pizzarelli, a Christmas-season favorite at Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center for many years, returns with his trio Saturday, December 16th, at 8PM.
Mahaiwe Executive Director Janis Martinson said the December shows chosen for this year reflect the theme of family. “John Pizzarelli, who played for years with his late father (famed jazz musician Bucky Pizzarelli) has frequently shared the Mahaiwe stage with his wife, Jessica Molaskey, and their daughter, Madeleine Pizzarelli.”
This year, Pizzarelli will be accompanied by Michael Karn on bass and Isaiah J Thompson on piano in a performance based on his latest recording, Stage & Screen, released in April and featuring tunes that focus the Broadway stage and silver screen. The program fully encompasses almost every decade from the 1920s, all performed as swinging jazz.
Pizzarelli, who has been playing stringed instruments since he was a young child and performed with some of the most outstanding musicians of his era–including his renowned father—said in a recent interview that he is always looking for ways to expand his repertoire.
He has said that he likes to communicate with his audiences but not only through music. From his earliest childhood he accompanied his father on gigs and spent his time with much older performers.
“I grew up watching to see how people communicated, how they tell stories,” he has said, noting three seminal moments that illuminated the process for him—watching Frank Sinatra, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen. “It wasn’t about the music,” he said. “It was about how they presented the music.”
He said Sinatra “had control of an entire arena” and that Springsteen had “76,000 people leaning in” on his Born in the USA tour. “I thought, ‘That’s a gift.’ I have to be able to present this music to the non-music fan. The music fans know but for the non-music fan I have to say there’s a beginning middle and end of the story.”
This insight informed his choice of songs for his latest recording. “Basically, when I started to work again (after Covid), Isaiah had just joined the group. We were just picking tunes, trying to find a new repertoire. I picked two from the 1925 musical, No, No Nanette—I Want to be Happy and Tea for Two. We just started adding things and I thought the name Stage and Screen would work because everything came from somewhere. Literally, it was an idea where I knew where the songs came from.”
It is not the first time that Pizzarelli has ventured into other genres of music to present jazz interpretations. “I do go into other music,” he said in an earlier interview. “The idea goes back to trying to expand what the Great American Songbook is. It started 40 years ago with the Beatles record I did. Then when (my wife, Jessica Molasky) wanted to do Joni Mitchell, I thought how do we translate this? It was a fun challenge we put ourselves in, finding ways to translate the material for a jazz audience.”
Challenges came early for Pizzarelli. Growing up with his famous father he first had a banjo put into his hands as a child of six or seven when his father arranged for music lessons. Later his father urged him to try the guitar, setting the stage for an acclaimed career as a jazz guitarist and vocalist.
Meanwhile in a house full of music, “this jazz vocabulary was making its way into my head. I’d go and play Honeysuckle Rose at the end of Bucky’s concerts. It was kind of a rite of passage.”
Pizzarelli has been hailed by the Boston Globe for “reinvigorating the Great American Songbook and re-popularizing jazz.” In addition to being a bandleader and solo performer, Pizzarelli has been a special guest on recordings for major pop names such as Natalie Cole, Kristin Chenoweth, Tom Wopat, Rickie Lee Jones and Dave Van Ronk as well as leading jazz artists such as Rosemary Clooney, Ruby Braff, Johnny Frigo, Buddy DeFranco, Harry Allen and, of course, his father.
He won a Grammy Award in the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album category as co-producer of James Taylor’s American Standard in 2021. A radio personality who got his start in the medium in 1984, Pizzarelli is co-host with his wife of Radio Deluxe with John Pizzarelli.
Tickets for his December 16th performance are on sale and can be purchased online at mahaiwe.org or by calling or visiting the Box Office, 413-528-0100, Wednesday through Saturday from noon to 4 PM.
Individuals ages 30 and under are eligible for $15 youth tickets.
The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, opened in 1905, was once home to vaudevillian and silver screen presentations. It has been has meticulously restored and year-round presents world-class music, dance, theater, classic films, Live in HD broadcasts and arts education programs for the southern Berkshires and neighboring regions. Since 2005 the performing arts center has hosted more than1,500 events and welcomed over half a million people through its doors. For more information please click the link below.