Dec. 18: John Pizzarelli performs at Jimmy’s right on time for the holidays

Jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli has had a unique career as a musician. He’s performed with legends such as Benny Goodman and Les Paul along with the Boston Pops among others. He also has his own syndicated radio show with his wife and when he’s not on stage, he’s crafting his own online guitar lessons for people to learn the tricks of the trade. On top of all this, casual fans most likely know Pizzarelli from a catchy jingle that was used for a commercial for a famous casino in the New England area during the turn of the century. Speaking of those casual fans, those folks along with the dedicated ones have an opportunity to see Pizzarelli play live at Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club in Portsmouth on December 18 starting at 7:30 p.m.

We had a talk ahead of the show about a memorable moment in his career in the early ‘90s, what made him want to pick up the guitar, that radio show I just mentioned, and loving to perform at Jimmy’s.

Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club, 135 Congress St. Portsmouth, NH 03801

Buy Tickets

Rob Duguay: A major moment in your career was back in the summer of 1993 where you got to open for Frank Sinatra for a run of shows he was doing. How were you able to get that gig and what was the experience like touring with Frank?

John Pizzarelli: He was doing six dates in Germany and they were looking for an opening act. The guy over there liked my work and he recommended me to the German promoter, and that’s how that all sort of worked out. We did the six gigs over there, and they were very nice. Frank Sinatra Jr. was conducting the band, they liked our show and we just needed a 30 minute set, which we had in our back pockets, so it worked out really well and it was very exciting. I think aside from The Rolling Stones, it was handled so amazingly well. You got food backstage, you had anything you needed, there were technical things that were taken care of and anything that went wrong was always handled so beautifully.

Everything was as easy as it could be and you were just like, ”Wow, if every tour could be like this it would be amazing.” That’s how it was.

RD: It sounds like it was an incredible experience. When it comes to jazz and swing, a lot of casual fans usually think of horns like the trumpet or the saxophone while associating the guitar with different styles. What initially gravitated you to playing guitar and what inspires your musical approach?

JP: I play guitar because my father played the guitar. He was a jazz guitarist and there were so many guitars in our house that if you wanted to sit down on the couch, you had to move one of them. My father actually taught me tenor banjo first, and then I gravitated to the guitar. My father saw that I could learn rock & roll chords off of records, and he said, ”Well, if you can do it with rock & roll, here’s some jazz that you can learn.” He had me learn from some duets that he had done, so I would learn the other part and we would go out into the world and play these things, so it just stuck. I enjoyed playing with my father a lot, and then eventually from all the car rides we would do while driving around, he turned me onto the Nat King Cole Trio.

I really loved that style of music, the swing jazz, and that’s what really got me hooked. I really was stuck on it.

RD: That’s awesome.  A lot of folks know you from the jingle for the Foxwoods Resort Casino commercial jingle “The Wonder Of It All”, so in reflection, do you like being associated with that or do you view it as another notch on the resume, what are your feelings about the jingle? I know it’s been 25 years since that tune came out.

JP: What had happened was there was a guy named Joey Levine who wrote it, and he got Don Sebesky, a great jazz arranger, to write the big band arrangement that you’ve heard on the TV. I was in the band, and the day I got there, Don said, “When we’re done with this, you’re gonna sing it.” I was just goofing around at the session, my son was there too and he was really young, he had his little Game Boy with him. I was like, “Yeah, Don. Sure”, and I sang it and afterwards I said, “Oh, this is something.” Then the director of the commercial came out and said, “You know, you should be in the commercial”, and I was sort of ignorant of the whole thing.

I just said, “Yeah, I should. You should put me in the commercial.” About six weeks later, I was there making it, so I didn’t write it, I just played on it, but it was a great thing for me. It got me a little cabin in Upstate New York and it was a good song too, it was fun to play. I always laugh when I meet people who saw me in the commercials, so it was a good thing and it was done really well. Everybody from top to bottom who were associated with it were great people, which also made it fun.

RD: It also has lasting power, which is a quality that proves how great a song can be.

JP: Yeah, everybody remembers “The Wonder Of It All” and it should still be their jingle, it was so good. We had a great time with it and that’s really the power of a good jingle, people still remember it so many years later.

RD: Absolutely. You also have a syndicated radio show titled “Radio Deluxe” with your wife Jessica Molaskey, who is also a singer and an actress. What made you want to pursue doing this project in the first place?

JP: Jessica and I have been working together a lot and after we got married, we had a yearly run at a few clubs in New York. It was just an idea that somebody had, they said that we should have our own radio show because they liked what we did in our patter. They put us in a studio almost 19 years ago now and we just started playing records, talking about it and it’s something that everybody has really liked. We like it because we get to listen to a lot of new music that gets us involved with what’s happening in the jazz world and it’s also a good way to connect to an audience who might not usually listen to us. People who listen to us come out to our shows and it was something that we didn’t even think was going to happen, but it’s still out there almost 20 years later.

RD: I’ve actually listened to the show a few times and it’s a great show.

JP: Oh, thanks.

RD: No problem, John. What are your thoughts on coming through New Hampshire to perform at Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club?

JP: I think this might be the third time we’ve played Jimmy’s this year and it’s a great place to play. We get to play a lot of different material, not just stuff from the current album, and it’s a really comfortable place. It’s a great venue and it’s a great town, so whenever we’re up in the area they always ask us to come play. Tyler Henderson will be on piano and Mike Carn will be on the bass with myself on guitar and vocals. We’re going to play some holiday favorites and it’s a nice time of year to drive up there and play a gig. It’s nice to have people come out to hear us and it allows us to go back more than one or two times a year, it’s a great place to play.