Sunday morning coming down

I’ve learned a lot listening to John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey on Radio Deluxe over the past several years. The weekly show is carried locally on KBEM FM in the Twin Cities and other such stations around the country.

Both John and Jessica are great musicians in their own right. We’ve seen John perform with his trio at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis several times. Some day we’ll do it again, if we’re lucky, maybe with Jessica.

John’s father, Bucky Pizzarelli, was a notable musician himself. He played the seven-string guitar. On the seven-string guitar, as I understand it, the seventh string is tuned to A an octave lower than the fifth string. My point, and I do have one, is that John has followed in Bucky’s path playing the seven-string. It’s a beautiful, full sound.

Bucky worked in studio bands at NBC and ABC. Among other things, he played as a session man on approximately every pop recording produced in New York, including Ray Charles’s “Georgia on My Mind,” just for example. “I never realized how many records I made,” he said in a 2011 documentary. He died earlier this year at the age of 94, followed by his wife a week later.

Dakota proprietor Lowell Pickett paired Bucky with jazz pianist Benny Green for what was billed as a one-off event at the time back in 2008 (story here). It turned out so well that they followed up with a few additional dates and returned to the Dakota for a live recording the following year. We felt lucky to there for the 2008 show too. This is what they sounded like together on “Easy to Remember.”

Jessica’s most recent disc is Portraits of Joni. It has caught me up in its feeling and creativity every time I listen to it. You can hear John accompanying Jessica on guitar in “A Case of You.”

John also unmistakably backs Jessica on “Marcie.”

Most recently, John contributed as a producer and guitarist to James Taylor’s American Standard disc. His own most recent disc — his twenty-fifth — is For Centennial Reasons, a tribute to Nat “King” Cole.

This week John and Jessica celebrated the 15th anniversary of their radio show (below). I have added the song listing from the free weekly show email sent out to subscribers. You can sign up for it here. Past episodes are posted here. I thought some readers might want to sample the anniversary edition of the show for a change of pace.

HOUR ONE
Kurt Elling – Tight (Nightmoves)
Ann Hampton Callaway – You Can’t Rush Spring (Bring Back Romance)
The Bill Charlap Trio – Cool (Somewhere)
Jack Jones – Call Me Irresponsible (Greatest Hits)
Liza Minnelli – Ring Them Bells (Liza with a “Z”)
Dick Haymes – The More I See You (Rain or Shine)
Keely Smith – On the Sunny Side of the Street (Spotlight on Keely Smith; Great Ladies of Song)
Margaret Whiting – All in Fun (Margaret Whiting Sings the Jerome Kern Songbook)
Harry Allen & John Pizzarelli – Pennies from Heaven (Harry Allen Meets the John Pizzarelli Trio)
Maddie Pizzarelli – Pink Haus (Pink Haus EP)
Dave Brubeck Quartet – Will You Still Be Mine? (Angel Eyes)

HOUR TWO
Kenny Rankin – Blackbird (live radio performance)
John Pizzarelli – Little Girl (Our Love Is Here to Stay)
Jonathan & Darlene Edwards – I Love Paris (Jonathan & Darlene’s Greatest Hits)
Ken Peplowski & John Pizzarelli – Goody Goody (live radio performance)
Michael Feinstein – Where Do You Start? (The Michael Feinstein Anthology)
Karrin Allyson – All I Want (Wild for You)
Barbara Carroll – Old Friends (Live at Birdland)
Dave Frishberg – Useless Waltz (Classics)
Mary Cleere Haran – Sure Thing (This Heart of Mine: Classic Movie Songs of the Forties)
John Pizzarelli & the Trio/Bucky Pizzarelli – Stompin’ at the Savoy (live radio performance)
Patrick Williams – New York State of Mind (10th Avenue)

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