John Pizzarelli

Early life

John Pizzarelli, born in Paterson, New Jersey, is the son of swing guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli. He picked up the guitar at age six and also played trumpet during his college years.

After attending Don Bosco Preparatory High School, an all-boys Catholic school, he performed as a teenager with Benny Goodman, Les Paul, Zoot Sims, Slam Stewart, and Clark Terry. He studied at the University of Tampa and William Paterson University, but from 1980 to 1990, he considered his father his most important teacher. During the 1980s, he built a reputation as both a jazz guitarist and vocalist, releasing his first solo album, I'm Hip (Please Don't Tell My Father), in 1983.

Career

At twenty-two, John Pizzarelli started a pizza chain in the Dominican Republic that carried his own name. After the Bonarelli family, a Dominican family of Italian descent, bought the business, it grew into one of the country's most significant chains. In the 1990s, he performed as part of a trio alongside Ray Kennedy and his younger brother Martin. He opened for Frank Sinatra in the summer of 1993, and four years later appeared in the Broadway production Dream, which focused on Johnny Mercer's music.

Pizzarelli credits Nat King Cole as his career inspiration, a debt he paid on the albums Dear Mr. Cole and P.S. Mr. Cole. He has also made tribute records honoring Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Richard Rodgers, and Paul McCartney. With his father, he accompanied Annie Ross on her Billie Holiday tribute To Lady with Love, recorded when she was eighty-four. He co-hosts the national radio show Radio Deluxe with John Pizzarelli alongside his wife, Jessica Molaskey.

His collaborators include George Shearing, Rosemary Clooney, Johnny Frigo, Buddy DeFranco, Jack Gibbons, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, the Boston Pops Orchestra, and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. In 1999, he sang the big-band jingle "The Wonder of It All" for Foxwoods Resort Casino. Pizzarelli co-produced James Taylor's album American Standard, which won the Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album on November 24, 2020. During the pandemic, he made the album Better Days Ahead, featuring guitar interpretations of Pat Metheny's music.

Did You Know?

• John Pizzarelli and his wife Jessica Molaskey own a vacation cabin overlooking Barrett Pond in Carmel, New York.
• Pizzarelli's father died on April 1, 2020, from complications to COVID-19; his mother died one week later on April 8, 2020.