BWW Interviews: New Philharmonia to Feature World Renowned Jazz Guitarist JOHN PIZZARELLI in Gala Performance

On June 12 at 8PM, the New Philharmonia Orchestra will conclude its 20th Anniversary Season with a gala performance featuring the world-renowned jazz guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli in a program showcasing his signature style that sets the standard for stylish modern jazz.

Last year, John Pizzarelli joined Eric Felten, host of internationally broadcast Voice of America TV show "Beyond Category", for a behind-the-scenes chat about his jazz roots, distinct style, and from where he draws his inspiration. Below are excerpts from John's interview that was originally published May 28, 2014 (full interview is available here http://www.voanews.com/media/video/1924936.html.)

EF: Part of the tradition of jazz was dance music, and it's a dance rhythm, and I think that jazz has kind of lost sight of the dance rhythm part of the music.

JP: The biggest compliment you could pay our group is if you start dancing. Every once in a while, in the back of clubs, you'll see a couple will start to dance and you go, "Oh!" And you know you've got the right beat.

EF: Growing up, your father was not only one of the great jazz musicians, but he was in New York, and you had all sorts of friends of your father's around who were themselves many of the most important jazz musicians of all time - hanging around with Benny Goodman, who your father played with. Who were some of the musicians you grew up knowing, and what did you learn from them?

JP: I don't know if I learned as much from them as I did know that I really liked them. I loved Zoot Sims. I loved meeting Joe Pass the first time at our house. Clark Terry. Even having Benny Goodman wander around our house was very exciting. And when I got to hear them play, I felt like I want to be a part of this fraternity, because these guys, after they play, they have a lot of fun and they told great stories. And the only way that you could get to be in that fraternity was to learn their language, and their language was "Honeysuckle Rose". You know, it was learning their songs, so you could say, "Oh, could I sit in with you guys?" and hope that that would happen, you know? So, my brother, Martin, who plays bass with us, and I -- we got to play at Christmastime with Zoot Sims; he played the clarinet a couple days after Christmas. He'd come over and there would be this jam session, and we'd be sitting there going, wow! And we knew three songs that we could play with him. When you got to be in those rooms, you start to cultivate a repertoire that would say, I could play. So, you had to know your chords.

EF: You've written a great memoir about your life and the musicians around. It's called World on a String, and it's well worth reading. You tell some great Benny Goodman stories in there. My favorite is, you're talking about being around while Benny was rehearsing to play a wedding gig. Benny putting together a wedding band. How did that happen?

JP: Well, what happened was, a guy said to Benny, I want you to play my daughter's wedding - what would it take? And Benny said some outrageous sum of money, and the guy said, "Okay!" He called my father - he said, we have to play that guy's wedding! And so, there was a rehearsal in a lawyer's apartment on 57th Street. The one thing they had to rehearse was "Daddy's Little Girl," because he had to play it so the father could dance with the bride. He does "Daddy's Little Girl", and then they say, okay, you can play a set. So, they're playing "Avalon", they're playing all the Benny Goodman hits, and everybody is talking. There's a video of it, and they're just sitting up there, and I'm going, Benny Goodman is playing at this wedding, and everybody is like, how is the filet mignon? Oh, can I have the salad? It's absolutely insane! It's surreal. It really was amazing.

EF: I want to talk a little bit about one of the gigs that really got you where you are and launched your career. Back in 1993, you played as opening act for Frank Sinatra. How intimidating was that to have to get out there in front of Frank Sinatra every night?

JP: It wasn't opening the show that was intimidating, but it was the crowds. I mean, there was 15,000 people in Berlin, there was another 20,000 in Hamburg, 10,000 in Stuttgart. It was not your normal opening act for whatever, you know? I'd done it with Bucky, for Joe Williams, or for George Shearing or something, you know, 300 people somewhere. So, you're just sitting out there going, where are all these people coming from! Once you got by that, then you had to go turn back and you'd be playing, and you're looking in the wings and there's Sinatra snapping his fingers. And you're just shaking your head going, this doesn't make any sense at all! So, it was quite fun.

EF: But one of the things I love about your singing is, there's a crop of young singers who try to sound like Sinatra, and it's a great thing to try to do and to emulate, but you don't try to sound like Sinatra. You sound like you. You can hear all sorts of things in your singing, from Nat Cole, to Fred Astaire, Chet Baker....

JP: Well, thank you. But it all goes back to Nat Cole, really, from the beginning. When I was 20 years old and I was working in a club playing guitar for my friend, who sang like Dick Haymes; he sang Bing Crosby songs and had a great presentation. And whenever he would say, "Why don't you sing something?" I didn't have anything to sing! I would sing a Kenny Rankin song or a Michael Frank song. But I discovered "Straighten Up and Fly Right", a Nat Cole song, through this guy's sister. She said, I love this song, could you learn this song? This is how jazz musicians get famous; they learn songs their girlfriends like. But when I played it for my Dad, he said, "Oh, that's Nat Cole!" He says, "You buy all those records!" And that's where I found the repertoire. "Route 66", "Frim Fram Sauce", "Paper Moon" - it was the anti-Sinatra thing! For me, it was perfect. It fit my voice, it fit that I wanted to play jazz, it had a sense of humor, and it gave me 15 years to get to Sinatra, so I could be in my late 30s, early 40s, then I could finally say "I've got you under my skin" - and I could understand that. But at the beginning, "Route 66" and all those others - "Straighten Up and Fly Right", "Baby, Baby, All The Time" - it was a perfect repertoire.

EF: And you also played with Rosemary Clooney. What did you learn from Rosemary Clooney?

JP: Always tell the truth when you sing. She goes, if you don't tell the truth, everybody knows. So, you can't fake it. I could listen to Rosie Clooney sing every night with no voice, and speak songs, and it would mean more because she knew what she was singing about, or talking about, even, you know? It was just so amazingly heartfelt. You'd just go, oh my god. She used to sing the end of "Wee Small Hours of the Morning" -- "That's the time you miss her most" -- and she'd say "most" -- "of all..." And every night she'd say "most" I'd get goosebumps the second time, because I knew she had something on her mind that made her sell that every night. I mean, she was a genius.

EF: Now, the people who come to see your shows will recognize and know that you learned a lot from that, because you often tell stories between your songs. You tell something about the song and what it means to you, and where it came from. What do you think that does for an audience, to learn something about the song, rather than just hear it cold?

JP: Well, in a sense, it's 50-50; there's the jazz listener that knows what's going on and they don't mind hearing the story, and then there's the people they bring with them, who will say, why did my friend bring me here? Who is this guy? And then you say, the reason I'm going to play four Bobby Troup songs right now is because of this, and here's who Bobby Troup was, and how he got started... Not like it's a classroom, but just to say, I'm going to let you know why we're doing this and who these people are, and hopefully set it up in a way that goes, oh, I have something to listen to, and this person actually wants me to listen to this. You have to remember, without people in the audience, there's no music. If the jazz quartet falls in the forest, and there's nobody there to see them fall...So, that's the whole deal. If you don't lead the people on, if you don't say hello to them, then they're going to go, you know, it was a nice night, but I don't think he cared that we were even there!

John Pizzarelli and his quartet appears with the New Philharmonia Orchestra led by Bo Winkler onFriday, June 12 at 8pm, at the First Baptist Church, 848 Beacon Street, Newton, MA 02459. Tickets are available online at https://newphil.secure.force.com/ticket or by calling: 617-527-9717. Reserved seats are $100, $50 and $35. A limited number of $500 VIP tickets are also available that include a "Pizza with Pizzarelli" reception after the concert with pizza and fine Italian wines. The First Baptist Church in Newton is wheelchair accessible. For more information about New Philharmonia, please visit http://www.newphil.org.

About John Pizzarelli

John Pizzarelli, the world-renowned jazz guitarist and singer, was called "Hip with a wink" by Town & Country, "madly creative" by the Los Angeles Times and "the genial genius of the guitar" by The Toronto Star. When he performs with his wife, singer/actress Jessica Molaskey, and his father, guitar legend Bucky Pizzarelli, they were labeled "the First Family of Cool" by the San Francisco Chronicle and "the von Trapps on Martinis" by The New Yorker. According to The New York Times, "the Pizzarelli-Molaskey duo are as good as it gets in any entertainment medium."

After his recent smash success with the Boston Pops, he was hailed by the Boston Globe for "reinvigorating the Great American Songbook and re-popularizing jazz." And the Seattle Times called him "a tour de force" and "a rare entertainer of the old school." Before a recent show in the northwest, the local paper quipped "John Pizzarelli is so impossibly cool, he shouldn't be legally allowed to enter Oregon."

Using performers like Nat "King" Cole, Frank Sinatra and Joao Gilberto and the songs of composers from Richard Rodgers, George Gershwin to James Taylor, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Lennon & McCartney as touchstones, John Pizzarelli has established himself as one of the prime interpreters of the Great American Songbook and beyond, bringing to his work the cool jazz flavor of his brilliant guitar playing and singing.

Pizzarelli started playing guitar at age six, following in the tradition of his father. After playing in pickup groups and garage bands through high school he began exploring jazz with his father as a teenager, and was able to perform with a number of great jazz musicians who would be a major influence on his work, including Benny Goodman, Les Paul, Zoot Sims, Clark Terry and Slam Stewart. John went out on his own after recording My Blue Heaven for Chesky Records in 1990, then toured extensively, playing clubs and concert halls, opening for such greats as Dave Brubeck, Ramsey Lewis and Rosemary Clooney. In 1993, he was honored to open for Frank Sinatra's international tour and then joined in the celebration for his 80th birthday at Carnegie Hall bringing down the house singing "I Don't Know Why I Love You Like I Do" with his father accompanying him.

For Pizzarelli though, his hero and foundation was Nat "King" Cole and the comparison to his iconic trio is the highest of compliments. "I've always said in my concerts that Nat 'King' Cole is why I do what I do." But Pizzarelli adds, "We aren't trying to copy him. His sound was singular and inspired. I've always said we're an extension, a 21st century version of what that group was." In fact, Pizzarelli devoted his RCA albums Dear Mr. Cole and P.S. Mr. Cole to music made famous by the beloved song stylist. Pizzarelli's catalog of albums also includes a touching cycle of torch ballads (After Hours), a collection of classic swing and bold originals (Our Love is Here to Stay), and a charming holiday disc (Let's Share Christmas). On one of his last projects for RCA, John Pizzarelli Meets the Beatles, he brought classic Beatles songs into the worlds of swing and smoky balladry.

A popular TV commercial for Foxwoods Casino has made Pizzarelli a recognizable face. "In the Northeast, I can see people staring at me on the street. 'The Wonder Of It All' is a great tune," he enthuses of the Don Sebesky-arranged number. "And people are calling the casino to ask 'who's that guy singing?' If I'm going to be associated with a jingle, I'm happy that at least it's something I like." In 1997, Pizzarelli made his Broadway debut in the musical Dream, a revue of Johnny Mercer songs.

Pizzarelli signed with the GRAMMY® Award winning label Telarc International in 1999 recording a string of successful CDs starting with Kisses In The Rain, a diverse set of standards and original tunes that showcases the spontaneity of his live performances within a studio setting, followed by Let There Be Love.

In addition to being a bandleader and solo performer, John has been a special guest on recordings for major pop names such as James Taylor, Natalie Cole, Kristin Chenoweth, Tom Wopat, Rickie Lee Jones and Dave Von Ronk, as well as leading jazz artists like Rosemary Clooney, Ruby Braff, Johnny Frigo, Buddy DeFranco, Harry Allen and, of course, Bucky Pizzarelli. He was featured opposite Donna Summer, Jon Secada and Roberta Flack on the GRAMMY® Award-winning CD, Songs From The Neighborhood: The Music of Mr. Rogers in 2005.

John has performed on the country's most popular national television shows such as "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," "The Late Show with David Letterman," "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," "The Conan Show," "Live With Regis & Kelly," "The Tony Danza Show," "The CBS Early Show," Fox News Channel, the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

He led a 40-member live orchestra at Radio City Music Hall in Sinatra: His Voice, His World, His Way. His instructional DVD Exploring Jazz Guitar - filled with demonstrations, lessons and anecdotes - is available from Hal Leonard. Pizzarelli received the 2009 Ella Fitzgerald Award from the Montreal International Jazz Festival, joining a select group of past winners including Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett and Harry Connick, Jr.

Pizzarelli performs annual engagements at the Café Carlyle with Jessica Molaskey and at Birdland with his jazz combo. He continues to tour throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Japan, performing classic pop, jazz and swing, while setting the standard for stylish modern jazz.

About the New Philharmonia Orchestra

Heralded by the Boston Globe for "bringing great music to the people, for the people, of the people and by the people", the New Philharmonia Orchestra is celebrating its 20th year of presenting programs of diverse repertoire to audiences of all ages from the urban and suburban communities in the greater Boston area. Founded in 1995, the ensemble was one of 65 orchestras featured in Ford's Made in America-the largest orchestral commissioning consortium in history featuring the music of Joan Tower.

The New Philharmonia Orchestra's educational and outreach programs form a core part of the ensemble's mission. In addition to offering family concerts that feature an "Instrument Petting Zoo" where audience members are invited to try the instruments of the orchestra, the orchestra presents joint performances with children from public schools from the greater Boston area. The orchestra also sponsors music education classes and string instrument lessons at public schools.

The New Philharmonia Orchestra is a member of the League of American Orchestras and the New England Orchestra Consortium.

For more information and tickets to this performance: https://newphil.secure.force.com/ticket

For more information about the New Philharmonia Orchestra: http://www.newphil.org

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