Video: Bucky Pizzarelli and friends at the 2013 Morristown Jazz & Blues Fest
By Kevin Coughlin
You’re 90 years old. You’ve spent four months in a rehab center with pneumonia after a “mini-stroke.” How do you recover?
If you’re Bucky Pizzarelli, you strap on your guitar and shuffle back onstage.
“You just start playing your instrument, and you forget about everything else,” said Pizzarelli, who is determined to perform at the sixth annual Morristown Jazz & Blues Festival on Saturday, Aug. 20, 2016, at 2 pm.
The free festival on the historic Morristown Green also will feature the George Gee Orchestra at noon, jazz trumpeter Louis Prima Jr. at 4 pm, teen sensation Quinn Sullivan at 6 pm, and hometown hero Robert Randolph and his Family Band as headliners at 8 pm.
Pizzarelli, who has played or recorded with everyone from Benny Goodman to Paul McCartney, will appear with longtime sidekick Ed Laub on vocals and guitar, son Martin Pizzarelli on bass, and violinist Aaron Weinstein.
Morristown festival organizers have kept their fingers crossed since Pizzarelli skipped his 90th birthday bash at the Bickford Theatre in January, after falling ill last October.
They are thrilled he is well enough to make his fifth appearance at their event.
“The only word to describe him is: Legend,” said Mayor Tim Dougherty. “He brings so much to the festival. I hope he can play for another decade!”
For Ed Laub, who has accompanied Pizzarelli for years, the challenge will be talking his mentor out of wearing a suit and tie in the August heat.
“Bucky loves it warm,” said Laub, 64. “Put him in front of that crowd, and boom, the adrenaline starts to flow.”
Concerned for Pizzarell–his pneumonia “probably would have killed most people”– Laub has tried to slow his return to the stage.
But Pizzarelli insisted on gigging from the moment he got home from rehab in April. So far they have done about a dozen shows, including a festival in Indiana.
‘HE WAS IN BAD SHAPE’
Their remarkable relationship — which began with the teenaged Laub bicycling to Pizzarelli’s Saddle River home for guitar lessons — has been tested over the last year.
Pizzarelli got sick right after Laub lost his wife, Bonnie, to breast cancer.
“My personal world and my professional world came to a screeching halt within one day of each other,” Laub said.
Pizzarelli asked Laub to bring a guitar on his visits to the convalescent home. The therapy worked both ways.
“He was in bad shape,” Pizzarelli said of his grieving friend. “The music kept him going.”
At the same time, Laub helped Pizzarelli painstakingly relearn songs they had performed together countless times.
“When you have a mini-stroke, you forget a lot of stuff,” Pizzarelli explained. “I tried to remember how to play Honeysuckle Rose.”
Has he succeeded?
“Yeah, with the help of Ed.”
‘KEEP PLAYING’
Pizzarelli described Laub as a fantastic friend, an underrated guitarist and a perfect musical partner — the first to really know how to accompany him on guitar.
“That’s the most important part. When you play a simple note, he plays a beautiful chord behind you,” Pizzarelli said.
Laub learned that lesson, and more, from the master all those years ago in Bergen County.
“The first thing he said to me was, ‘If you’re going to be a professional musician, your first job is always to make the other guy sound as good as you can make him sound. It’s not about you. It will come back to you,'” Laub recounted.
He has seen it come back to Pizzarelli many times over. Crowds flock to his shows because his brilliantly simple chordal arrangements eschew “fretboard acrobatics” to honor melodies that people love, Laub said.
And those tunes are infused with the man’s gravelly warmth.
When Laub started taking lessons, Pizzarelli was a member of The Tonight Show band. He had played ukulele on The Mitch Miller Show, and would lay down bass lines with a seven-string Danelectro guitar on hits by Ray Charles, Dion, Ben E. King and Roberta Flack.
The point, Laub said, is that Pizzarelli didn’t have to tutor a teen who pedaled over from Upper Saddle River. He wanted to.
“He gets so much pleasure out of teaching someone and watching them learn, he’s like a kid opening presents on Christmas Day,” Laub said.
The scene is repeated with fans at almost every gig, he said.
“He will share every lick he knows, every chord-melody solo. He doesn’t look at it as competition, as so many musicians do… And he’s kind to people. There’s no arrogance at all. That’s what comes out in your playing– your personality.”
Bucky Pizzarelli’s personality will be on full display in Morristown on Saturday. No doctor on earth could keep him away.
“It’s a great thing that they put on every year,” Pizzarelli said of the festival. “It’s under the trees, out on the grass, and it’s free. What else can we do to it?”
And for anyone struggling with setbacks, he’s got just the prescription:
“Keep playing. That’s all.”
MORE ABOUT THE 2016 MORRISTOWN JAZZ & BLUES FESTIVAL
COVERAGE OF THE 2015 MORRISTOWN JAZZ & BLUES FESTIVAL
WHY HE’S A LEGEND: MUSIC PEOPLE ON BUCKY PIZZARELLI
Bucky Pizzarelli started out learning banjo from a couple of pretty famous uncles, Pete and Bobby Domenic. He quickly switched to guitar. We asked some top music people to describe his technique — and his place in the jazz world.
Grover Kemble, founding member of Za Zu Zaz:
The thing I most admire about Bucky Pizzarelli’s playing is his fantastic rhythm and chord work. Many players today focus way too much on lead or solo string technique. This can make playing with such players very difficult, because when taking turns soloing the rhythm can either fall apart or the chord changes will often lack color, sound bland, or be devoid of tonal warmth. Bucky stresses great chords changes and interesting alternate voicings.
He can also play rapid-fire block chord solos as well, an exciting tenor banjo-style feature, which no doubt came from studying with his very famous banjo playing uncles… His son John also employs this style to great advantage.
And Bucky is always willing to play with you and teach you something new. He’s always gracious with his time and knowledge, a true gentleman and class act. Young players going to the festival should pay close attention to his well rounded-ness as a complete guitar player (rhythm, chords, solo), and to the joy he brings to all generations of players and listeners with his warmth, congeniality, and remarkable talent.
Frank Vignola has performed with Bucky at past Morristown Jazz & Blues Festivals:
Bucky is one of the pioneers of swing guitar. He and Freddie Green are the two most significant rhythm guitarists of the last 100 years. His spirit, command of the song and his groove are so easy to play with… At the same time, he’s one of the leaders in the world of seven-string guitarists. He and George Van Eps are the two most significant seven-string guitarists of the last 100 years.
Ed Laub, former Bucky pupil and his longtime musical partner:
He’s a master of chord-melody …. [who] approaches music with a degree of simplicity most others don’t have. He has an incredible respect for composers and the way they wrote the song. Other guitarists feel they have to do all these acrobatics to impress people. At the end of the day, the average person sitting down to hear a performance wants to hear a song. They want to go away whistling the melody, tapping their foot. People are more gratified hearing a song than hearing a million notes, and wondering what the song is. Bucky can whale [on guitar], but he does it selectively, where he’s coloring the tune. He’s never ever trying to impress everybody. He’s just trying to entertain them.
Don Jay Smith, co-producer of the Morristown Jazz & Blues Festival:
Linda Smith and I have known Bucky Pizzarelli for many years and there is no one who exudes the joy of music better than he does. Since 2012, he and Ed Laub have become an essential part of our Festival tradition. And each year, he brings something different to his set. Whether it’s guitar great Gene Bertoncini, the fantastic Vinny Raniolo or the amazing Frank Vignola, Bucky’s group always provides the audience with a special treat. It’s no wonder he is one of the most beloved of all jazz musicians. He brings out the best in those around him and has such a good time doing it… Whether he is performing at the White House for Presidents or on the Green in Morristown for his hometown folks, Bucky always gives his best and makes everyone feel special.
Bucky on Bucky:
I’m a firm believer in chordal playing. There are more notes in a chord. I think it sounds good, once you put it all together. If you play single strings, you need accompaniment. Chordally, you don’t need accompaniment… It’s up to you to make it up yourself, what you do with it….I could play all night!
Was sorry to hear about your and Ed’s troubles and relieved to know that you were both able to help each other through all this. Music is also healing. I wish you both much healing and more music in the future!!
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