John Pizzarelli did not attend a jazz program at a college or university. Instead, John went to the School of Bucky Pizzarelli, playing with his father and other jazz greats before he could drive a car. As a result, the guitarist and singer is well versed in the Great American Songbook, which is filled with music from movies and Broadway musicals. For his 35th album as a leader, Pizzarelli decided to make that the theme of the recording. The new album, Stage and Screen, has just been released on Palmetto Records, and features tunes such as “Tea For Two,” “I Want to Be Happy,” “As Time Goes By,” and nine more songs from various musicals and films.
We spoke during The Jazz Cruise where he played all week with his trio of Mike Karn on bass and Isaiah J. Thompson on piano. He talked about the new album, as well as his 2020 recording with James Taylor, American Standard, and his 2021 solo guitar album of Pat Metheny songs, Better Days Ahead.
Listen to our conversation, above.
Interview transcript:
Lee Mergner: This is well trodden ground for you. In many ways it’s like the album you did with James Taylor, American Standard, featuring songs from musicals and films. What was that experience like, doing that record with James?
John Pizzarelli: It was great because he was really good at picking the tunes that he liked. He picked great songs. Before I got to his barn to do the record, I thought he was going to do it with his rhythm section of Steve Gadd, Jimmy Johnson and Larry Goldings. I figured, “Oh, we'll just all play tunes and he'll sing.” But he really James Taylor-zed it. That's what made it special because he made it a guitar-centric record. Just me and him before we added everything else. That really was the center of it. It was a really great experience.
I know he leaned on you for intel on these songs even though he grew up with musicals. But I’m sure there were a couple of tunes that you said, “Oh, this would be good.”
There were a couple that I suggested such as: “Carefully Taught,” “Heart Stood Still,” and “Surrey with the Fringe on Top.” It was wonderful. I thought we were done, but he called me one night at dinner and said, “Oh, you’ve got to come back up. We're going to do, “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.” He really found things that worked well for him. He found that song “Easy as Rolling Off a Log,” which was from a cartoon. But it worked out really well. It was just terrific.
You've been doing songs from films and musicals forever. Why did you decide to make that the theme of this album?
I looked at some of the songs when Isaiah joined the group. Isaiah J. Thompson on piano hooked up with me and Mike Karn, the bass player. We started to just get tunes together, and I started to think, “Well, what are all of these tunes?” Basically, they're show tunes or they're movie tunes. Since the album was for me, not Nat King Cole, I decided I can finally have a little gray area of tunes where you can put anything in it.
If you have to book it somewhere, you can call it “Stage and Screen.” I found over the pandemic when I was doing these Thursday shows, somebody wanted to hear a song by Jason Robert Brown called “I Love Betsy.” And I was like, “I think I could do that with the group, you know?” I made little changes to that. “Coffee in a Cardboard Cup” was a Kander and Ebb tune that Jessica [Molaskey] and I had played. I found a few songs that were sort of outside the “Just In Time” and “Oklahoma” stuff.
That one I wasn't familiar with, “I Love Betsy.” What is that from? You also cut it down, right?
Yes, there was a part in the middle where the character, in the opening song for the musical Honeymoon in Vegas, is saying all these things he likes but he hasn't been able to commit to Betsy because he's haunted by his mother. In the middle, there's a thing about his mother—all the years he's been waiting. I said to Jason, “Do you mind if I just cut that and make it three verses, sort of like ‘Rhode Island’ because that song is like a list song, you know?” He was like, “Sure.” It worked out very well.
You do have to get permission, right?
Yes, and I've known Jason. He knew Jessica first, so that was great. It worked out fine.
For “As Time Goes By” you sing a verse that most people don't do. Where was it done?
I learned it off a record called Life is Beautiful by Tony Bennett and it was made in-between the Columbia years when he made four records. The two Rodgers and Hart Records with George Barnes and Ruby Braff. And he made the two records with Bill Evans and then he made this one called Life is Beautiful. My father [Bucky Pizzarelli] is on it. It was just a bunch of tunes and they recorded it with Bill Hassett who was a producer, as was Rollins of Rollins and Joffe and of course, Woody Allen’s management guy. “As Time Goes By” was on that record, a beautiful Tony Zito arrangement and sang the verse up front.
At my first gig at the Algonquin 30 years ago, I did a verse medley. I did “It Had to Be You” and another one and I ended with, “As Time Goes By” with the verse “This day and age we're living in is cause for apprehension.” I looked up and of course Tony Bennett was sitting right in front of me and he looked at me and he’s going, “Keep going.” Well, I learned this from him and he's right here. It's a beautiful verse too. It's really terrific. It's one of those verses that sets it up nice. Everybody goes, “Oh my god.” Because everybody just knows that one little bit.
Right, thanks to Casablanca. Your Thursday night virtual concert series really did allow you to work with a wide range of repertoire. You were doing a lot of Brazilian stuff.
I started to find out, on these Thursday night things on Facebook, what everybody liked. “Time After Time” is on the record because almost every week somebody wanted me to sing, “Time After Time.” It's one of those favorite song things. I started to find things that people were liking. Also, I now have two three-ring binders of lyrics. I would collect them so I didn't have to start going back and preprinting things.
You did the album with your working trio—Isaiah and Mike—which is the classic guitar, piano and bass. What is it that you really like about that format? I mean, do you hate drummers that much?
No, you know what's funny is that it was cheaper. We were supposed to go to Europe a number of years ago. It was one of those things that if you don't do the tour, you're going to have three weeks of no work, right? Because it's just too late and you have to take the tour. So I called up—it wasn't Isaiah at the time—it was Konrad [Paszkudzki]. And I said, “We just have to do this. It's going to work better with piano, bass, and guitar” which is how we started.
Also, that's the Nat King Cole trio model which looms so large for you.
It just worked so well. We will use drums when we need them, but this seemed to be the way to work, so we just got back to doing it that way again. It really is terrific. We’ve settled into quite a great unit.
It really hinges in many ways on Mike, right?
With Mike on bass and me playing the rhythm guitar. Isaiah on piano and me have all these shout things going. It's been terrific to travel with. Every day, every gig is another kind of experience. It's really wonderful.
Isn't it amazing how much some of these young guys at that age know and then also how hard they work to get better? During the day, I was walking through the Rendezvous Lounge on The Jazz Cruise and saw Bill Charlap with Isaiah for an hour just going over stuff.
Isaiah and I, we've had a number of long, long car rides, going to gigs. I'll say, “You’ve got to play me some of this stuff you're talking about.” I'm learning much more than he is from the things he’s playing for me.
What kind of things?
On the first trip, we went up to Vermont and he played a Gerald Wilson record, a live thing. It was tremendous. Just some piano players that I knew of, but great cuts from Ahmad Jamal and just listening to Isaiah's records. He's got some great ideas for some records he's going to make coming up, and it's been very exciting to listen to all this stuff.
To have a younger person in the band, there is some energy that you get from them, don’t you think? I've seen it with band leaders who hire younger folks.
I came out of the Bucky Pizzarelli school where I knew like four or five things, right? Also I didn't have the internet. Bucky would say certain things that he liked—Benny Goodman or Count Basie or Nat King Cole or Dick Haymes. For these [younger] guys, whatever they like, it becomes a whole scene of things that they've listened to, all the outtakes. It just becomes a whole other school of thought there.
Of course, now there are schools devoted to jazz. When you were coming up in college, you went to Tampa, and then William Paterson, which now has a great music program.
Oh, it's great. Yeah, they were just starting and Bucky was an adjunct there.
In fact, Thad Jones started that program. Then Rufus Reid, I guess. But, as you know, jazz education just wasn't a thing back then.
Oh no, not at all.
I don't know if you would have even gone if these programs had existed then.
No, I learned more from working with my father. That was really because of being thrown on bandstands at the last minute.
I also wanted to talk to you about another record that you did, Better Days, which features you playing Pat Metheny tunes solo. How did that start?
I was always a fan and the thing was that it was part of the grief of having both my parents die within eight days of each other—April 1st and April 8th. And just trying to keep my wits about me and playing the guitar every day. I started to go, “Well, I've been playing ‘James’ for 25 years.” I figured maybe I can try to figure out the bridge and work it all out and things like that. Then I said, “Well, why don't I try this?” I started to learn other things. A buddy of mine, who I was talking to every day who lives in Illinois was suggesting, “Antonia.” Then Metheny had written me about my parents. And I was like, “Well that's very sweet.” I said to him, “As a matter of fact, I'm trying to play some of your tunes.” And then he said, “Well, if you're trying to find my tunes…,” and he went, click, click, click, and sent me the book. All of them.
How many were there?
It's got to be 200 songs. Now I could at least go, “Okay, here are the right chords. I don't have to listen to them on my slow-downer.” It was great to get all those tunes with the right chords and to spend time on it and figure out how to record it onto my iPad. My friend Rick Hayden in Illinois was a guitar teacher who I've known through Ray Kennedy, and was one of my best friends. He helped me learn the technical side. Plug this in here and plug it in there and then, as you said, “Don't touch it.”
I'd put it all in GarageBand and then would send it to him in Illinois and he would polish it up and send it back to me. Then I'd send one or two to Pat, every once in a while. Pat would say, “Gee, that was great. Oh, that's amazing.” It was surreal.
You got to interview him for JazzTimes about his classical record.
That's right. Pat wrote two classical pieces and you hooked me into interviewing him. Then at the beginning of the interview, he was going, “So that's a record you made?” That was really great.
I remember seeing you maybe 10 years ago at the Detroit Jazz Festival and Pat and you were both on the bill. I said to you, “Are you going to go talk to Pat?” You said, “I don't know.” I was surprised initially, but I think everybody has somebody whom they admire but feel uncomfortable approaching.
When I was in my twenties and I was at the Dick Gibson Festival, you'd always have Joe Pass, Herb Ellis, Barney Kessel, Charlie Byrd and Bucky. You'd just sit around and maybe if you're lucky, you'd say hello to somebody. Even Bucky was sort of shy around them.
That's the Mount Rushmore of jazz guitar.
Then around Pat, I didn't know what to do. But he had actually written me about rhythm guitar and about getting together. He was talking about certain guitars that he liked such as the Charlie Christian pick-up and all this kind of stuff when we were bouncing ideas. We were literally on the verge of getting together right before the pandemic.
I'm sure you'll connect again.
I hope so. I'd love to sit down and play with him. We've talked about it, but we just haven't been able to do it. He's not that far from me in upstate New York. He’s also rather close in this city too. One of these days, we'll get together.
Especially since there's a lot more to his tunes beyond the melodies. But, boy, he can write a melody.
You bet. I think that's what's so exciting about it. When I sit down and play them, I can hear my father saying, “That's a pretty good tune.” I did take him to see Pat at the Beacon in 1988. He was like, “Gee, what are all those guitars he's got? Who's that guy bringing him guitars?” He was really jazzed by it. It was really great to watch.
Is there anything else that you wanted to say about the album?
The record comes out April 21st and I'll do a week at Birdland to kick it off and then go all around the country. It’s on Palmetto, which is a new label for us.
Right, Anne Hampton Callaway’s Peggy Lee record is also on Palmetto. It's the same label that Fred Hersch, Ben Allison, and Matt Wilson have released albums on.
It's nice to be on a jazz label. When I first got into the business, quote unquote, I went to several booking agents and one guy looked at my thing and he said, “Wow, you worked with Zoot Sims?” He goes, “How's he doing?” I said, “Well, he's dead.” I finally found people who know what jazz is. It's nice to be at a jazz label.
We're talking now while we’re at sea on The Jazz Cruise, which you and I have done for many years. It’s hard to explain to people how much fun it is and how great it is. They just think we're kidding.
I was watching that video where Randy Brecker says, “It's the best jazz festival in the world.” And I was thinking about it. I'm going, “Well, it just might be, with all these people under one roof, and how people can just walk up and say hello to us, it is the best jazz festival in the world.” For instance, you can hear six different artists—like Christian McBride, Bill Charlap, Sullivan Fortner—all on the same night. And that's only one day with six more to go.
I love the fact that they’re doing a piano thing at night with people like Bill Charlap, Billy Childs, Benny Green... All the other piano players will be there at the bar.
It's wonderful. Mike Karn will be playing and Mike looks out and says, “Uh-oh, Peter Washington’s hanging out at the bar.”
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.