[Dixielandjazz] Family Ties in Jazz

[Stephen Barbone]

Nice article about the Pizzarelli's. Brings to mind the fact that there
are several "families" in Jazz like them, The Metz's and others through
the years who have been "Metz'n Around".

Note that in the article the Pizzarelli's are referred to as the "First
Family of Cool". Seems to me that a reference to "Hot' might also be
relevent.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone



June 8, 2004 - NY Times

The Family That Plays Together . . . Has an Improbably Good Time

By FRANK J. PRIAL

      The jazz singer Jessica Molaskey was talking recently about her
lively career when she paused suddenly to display a photograph of her
6-year-old daughter, Madeleine. "Maybe she'll be a doctor," Ms. Molaskey
said. "The most musical doctor at Mount Sinai."

Madeleine is the newest addition to what has become known as the First
Family of Cool. Her father is John Pizzarelli, the jazz guitarist; her
uncle is Martin Pizzarelli, the bassist; her grandfather, head of the
clan, is Bucky Pizzarelli, the guitarist of guitarists and a musical
legend. And her mother, considered one of the best new jazz singers
around, has been a Pizzarelli since she married John eight years ago.

He, by the way, prefers to call them all "the von Trapp family on
martinis."

With everyone in New York, the Pizzarellis are gearing up for a two-week
stand at Feinstein's at the Regency, beginning tonight. The show is
based on John Pizzarelli's newest CD, his fifth Telarc release, , called
"Bossa Nova." It features his trio — John, Martin and the pianist Ray
Kennedy, an honorary Pizzarelli — with the guests Bucky, Ms. Molaskey
and Daniel Jobim, grandson of the bossa-nova nonpareil Antonio Carlos
Jobim. They plan to do Jobim standards like "The Girl From Ipanema" and
"Desafinado," a little Sondheim and some Pizzarelli originals.

That's the plan. "With my father, you never know what's going to
happen," John said. "He'll play whatever comes into his mind or whatever
the audience asks him to play. He's impossible."

Ms. Molaskey said of her in-laws: "They still amaze me. They call each
other every day, even when they've got a gig together that night. They
play chords to each other on the phone."

On cue her phone rang. She ignored it. After the recorded message, her
husband came on from Cincinnati, where he was playing a club date.
"How's it going?" he said to the machine, referring to this interview.
"Listen," he added, "don't tell him about my criminal record." He
laughed and hung up.

"I knew he'd call," she said. "He can't resist. They're all like that.
What a family."

Martin, whom John calls the family's consigliere, was in Ohio, too.
Bucky was in Odessa, Tex., a town he has played regularly for 30 years.
At his home in Saddle River, N.J., the day after he got in from Texas,
he said it had been a tough trip, but a night's sleep had revived him.
Good thing, too, because he joined his sons later that day to appear on
"Late Night With Conan O'Brien" on NBC. At 78 that is not so bad. "I
don't know how he does it," said John, who is 44. ( Martin is 43 and Ms.
Molaskey 42.)

Bucky Pizzarelli started entertaining when he was 6 and living above the
family grocery store. "I had two uncles, Pete and Bobbie Dominick, who
played guitar and banjo," he said. "Bobbie was a professional musician,
and Pete worked for a linen-and-thread company for 35 years. They were
over at the house every weekend, and they'd teach me, banjo first and
then guitar.

"I was in high school when I got a job with Vaughn Monroe's orchestra.
We toured for four months, then I went back and finished school." After
World War II, he rejoined Monroe and stayed until the band broke up in
1953. "One of the violin players called and said there was a job on `The
Kate Smith Show,' " he said, "and I got it. It was a good group. Doc
Severinsen was on trumpet."

The Severinsen connection paid off. "I was in Severinsen's band on `The
Tonight Show' for years," Bucky said. That led to an offer from Benny
Goodman and a close association that lasted until Goodman's death in
1986.

He has had his own groups and recorded with, among others, Zoot Sims,
Bud Freeman, Stéphane Grappelli and, from 1980, with his son John. They
have worked regularly together since, mostly harmoniously. "We don't get
mad," the elder Pizzarelli said, "but we knock heads once in a while. I
don't interfere. I call up once in a while and say, `Here are some songs
you ought to take a look at.' That's all."

Bucky is actually John Sr. "When my father was 16," Bucky said, "he
hitchhiked out to Texas — Odessa, in fact — and worked on a ranch. He
came back to the grocery store, but he always loved that life. And he
called me Bucky. And that's why I still go out there to play."

In the Pizzarelli tradition, John, too, was playing banjo and guitar
when he was 6. After sitting in with his father's friends as a boy, he
tried college, toyed with the idea of a baseball career ("I am a closet
Red Sox fan," he said) but came back to the guitar. The trio, which he
put together in 1992, has been on a virtually nonstop international tour
since. "Forty weeks last year," John said.

He has made some 15 records with the trio, with big bands, with his
father and in recent years with Ms. Molaskey. A natural comic onstage
like his dad, he loves to mix it up with the audience. A light,
laid-back Nat King Cole style tenor voice serves him well in solos and
blends neatly with Ms. Molaskey's more polished delivery in their duets.
"A blend of Tony Bennett, Les Paul and Jerry Seinfeld," one critic
wrote.

John Pizzarelli met Ms. Molaskey when they worked in "Dream," an
ill-fated Broadway show based on Johnny Mercer lyrics. Reared in
Connecticut, she had left home for New York at 18 and quickly landed a
role in an Agnes de Mille revival of "Oklahoma." "They asked me to
sing," she said. "I couldn't, but I sang anyway — `How Are Things in
Glocca Morra' — and I got the job. I couldn't believe it."

After "Dream" folded, the two continued to see each other. Both had been
married before. "On the fourth date," she said, "when I told him I write
songs, he turned white. When we decided to get married, it was like
`Kramer vs. Kramer': here was this guy, a jazz musician with no
furniture and a 4-year-old child. I thought I must be nuts."

But the theater had lost its magic. Hollywood had come East. "I was
losing B roles to people who had never walked on a stage before," she
said. "I'd go to auditions and say to myself, `I don't want to be here.'
" She read for a role as Hugh Jackman's mother. "His mother," she said.
"For God's sake." Her last stage role was in the fall of 2002 in
Terrence McNally's short-lived play "A Man of No Importance." She played
the older woman.

John urged her to concentrate on her voice. Her model became Rosemary
Clooney, a success despite the passage of time. The theater is finite,
but singing, as Clooney demonstrated, can be limitless, so Ms. Molaskey
started appearing with the trio. She wrote songs and in 2002 made her
first solo CD, "Pentimento," a nostalgic collection of Depression-era
songs. Jonathan Schwartz, radio's ardent champion of the American
songbook,
and a longtime devotee of the Pizzarellis, called "Pentimento" "a
singular work of art." It was soon followed by "A Good Day," her homage
to Peggy Lee. She is on her husband's "Bossa Nova" disc.

She wrote the script for a show earlier this year at the 92nd street Y,
based on her album "Pentimento." All the Pizzarellis were involved, and
Frank McCourt was the narrator. Currently, she is also putting together
a program for her solo debut at the Algonquin early next year.

"It is a pretty good life," she admitted cautiously, adding: "I was
driving in Los Angeles one day when I turned on the radio and heard
myself singing. I thought, `Wow, how did all of this happen?' "