Jazz Guitar Master Bucky Pizzarelli – 100th Anniversary of His Birth

On the 100th anniversary of Bucky Pizzarelli’s birth, JGT contributor Joe Barth looks back at what jazz guitarists have said about Bucky.

Born January 9, 1926, John Paul (Bucky) Pizzarelli would have been 100 years this January 9, 2026.  He was in his 80s when I met him, and he had the energy and fire of a forty-year-old.  He has simply played with just about everybody in jazz history.  I met with Bucky about 15 years ago in State College, PA, when he was headlining the jazz festival there in a duo with clarinetist Ken Peplowski.  Here is what some of the many jazz guitarists I have interviewed with over the years have said about Bucky.

Howard Alden….    Sounds like Bucky is playing 6 string guitar.  Bucky is such a fearless player, never one to lay back. 

In the 1970s, a friend had another album that Bucky and Joe did, and the liner notes in the album mentioned that Bucky played in the role of Eddie Lang.  I wasn’t that familiar with Bucky then, and I was imagining these arpeggiated chords coming from him.  Bucky came on with this very energetic approach, which is totally him. No one else plays like that. His uncles were banjo players, and that is where he got a lot of that comping style from.

Roni Ben Hur….  Bucky was great.  He was a real asset to the New York guitar scene.  He was so accessible, supportive, always out playing, so sweet, kind and friendly when you saw him.  His playing is always so impeccable.  

He swings nonstop.  From his era, everything you did had to swing.  Your lines had to be complete, correct rhythmically, clean, and engaging you.  It was a sacred thing for them.  There has to be intensity from the first note to the final note of the melody. The guy was never out to overwhelm you.  If they began to do so, they would immediately pull back, and they would make it sound as if it was what they had planned all along.  Just make sure that you are always swinging.

Gene Bertoncini….   Bucky did chordal solos like no one else.  He’s another guy that you don’t want to follow.  He was also a great linear player too.  He was one of the best rhythm players ever.  This is a nice guitar sound with a wonderful swing feel. He was certainly the person to do a Freddie Green tribute.  He is also a great guy and very generous on the bandstand. 

Royce Campbell….    Bucky is a comprehensive professional.  Whatever he does is top-notch. If I played another instrument and wanted to hire a great guitar player, it would always be Bucky.  He is not an innovator on the guitar.  It is not his thing, but he is so good at what he does.  Another thing with Bucky is that you hear the whole history of jazz guitar in his playing.  I have to admit that I am not influenced by Eddie Lang all that much, but you hear Eddie’s influence in Bucky.

Bucky was the most traditional player of all the guitarists on my 6×6 album.  That’s why we had him.  He brought that historical connection that I was just talking about.

Steve Habermann…..    Bucky was a George Van Eps type player. He was the other 7-string player that everyone knows about. He really liked chords.  Bucky would go around and tell people that George Van Eps is “THE” chord guy.  You need to listen to him.  Bucky also wanted to see some other guys convert to the 7-string guitar.

But Bucky was a very different player than George.  Bucky deals with more parallel movement block chords than George’s contrapuntal lines and movement.  Bucky’s sound was very acoustic, like George’s.  There is a very good Freddie Green time in his playing.

John Jorgenson….  I recognize the attack.  There is a particular thing he does with the right hand in his playing.  Bucky has this sense of fun to playing that is so appealing.  Some players are so serious in their playing.  I need to remind myself of this from time to time.  If you are having fun, then the audience is going to have fun as well.  It is all good.

His choice of voicings is so sweet.  He never gets in the way of the piano.  His solos are rhythmically and harmonically interesting, but there is a liveliness and aggressiveness to them that I like a lot.  I don’t like things to be too laid back.  I want some aggression.

John Pizzarelli….   This (NY Swing) is my favorite group with Dad.  For about ten years, they played every week at Zino’s in downtown New York, and I would go and hear them as much as I could.  Often they played without the drums.  This album comes from an incredibly fertile time when they were adding lots of new songs.  At times, it seems like my dad seems to have about fifteen songs that he likes to play over and over again.  John Bunch is a great player. John and Dad would challenge each other to find new songs.  These guys swing so hard.  (listens to Bucky comping) Nobody plays guitar like this.  He is a full guitar player; he’s so good as a rhythm guitar player. 

My dad started me on tenor banjo when I was six years old.  I studied with my dad’s Uncle Bobby.  I later picked up the guitar; we had a lot of them around the house.  I first played Elton John songs.  When I was sixteen, my dad showed me some songs on the guitar.  He never gave me lessons.  He never showed me technique.  He would just play songs and expect me to join in.  Off records, I would learn what other guitar players did, like what George Barnes did on a tune.  I learned from my dad by doing gigs with him.  I am self-taught.  My sister was the one who got guitar lessons, classical guitar.    

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