By Andrew Poretz***Guitarist Frank Vignola has been hosting the weekly Wednesday Guitar Night series at Birdland since 2021, supported by pianist Ted Rosenthal, bassist Gary Mazzaroppi and drummer Alex Raderman, plus various guest guitarists, other musicians and singers. This extra-special edition of Guitar Night celebrated the legendary guitarist Gene Bertoncini’s 88th birthday.
Though perhaps not a widely-known household name, Vignola is a virtuoso guitarist with an impressive resume. He’s played with the likes of Ringo Starr, the New York Pops and guitar legend Les Paul, who named him to his “Five Most Admired Guitarists” list for The Wall Street Journal. The shows are quite loose and improvisational, with the feeling of an invitation to a world-class jam session at someone’s home: songs are called, with informal instructions given by whomever takes the lead—like a quarterback calling “audibles” in football. There are no charts, just a whole lot of musical instinct and experience.
The Bronx-born Bertoncini not only has some 20 albums to his credit in his seven-decade career, but has worked with many of the greatest names in jazz, pop and bossa nova, including Chet Baker, Bill Charlap, Bette Midler, Tony Bennett, Astrud Gilberto and Nancy Wilson to name a very, very few. For this occasion, Vignola brought on famed guitarist-singer John Pizzarelli and Italian-born Pasquale Grasso, all of whom have distinct playing styles and sounds.
The s
et opened with a sprightly “Tangerine” (Victor Schertzinger, Johnny Mercer), with all three guitarists tripling one another at one point. A double-time “Sweet Georgia Brown” (Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard, Kenneth Casey) featured Pizzarelli’s picking prowess, a la the virtuosity of the late Roy Clark, country music singer, guitarist, and multi-instrumentalist; the tune also featured a fantastic, high-speed exchange between Pizzarelli and Grasso. After the smoke cleared from that number, Vignola asked Pizzarelli if he had a “nice ballad for us.” Pizzarelli quipped, “That was the ballad!” to much laughter. A sweet instrumental of “These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)” (Jack Strachey, Harry Link, Eric Maschwitz) featured Vignola’s tastiest solo of the set. Grasso had the only solo number of the evening—the Birdland audience raptly attentive—with a masterful display on “So Beats My Heart for You” (Pat Ballard, Charles Henderson and Tom Waring), a tune seven years older than Bertoncini. .
Bertoncini then made his way to the stage, his Aaron Green classical acoustic guitar in hand, and played the even older song, “If I Had You” (Ted Shapiro, Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly)—his playing and enthusiasm intact even though he 
needed a cane and some effort to get to the stage (he was still biking everywhere until the pandemic intervened). Bertoncini performed a marvelous “kitchen sink” arrangement of “Route 66” (Bobby Troup) that also featured Pizzarelli’s patented “scat doubling” (where he simultaneously scats while playing the identical notes on the guitar) and a clever piano quote or two of “Happy Birthday” by Rosenthal.
For the final two songs, singer Melissa Stylianou, a member of the female harmony group Duchess, whose buttery voice is always a joy to hear, sang a rubato “East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)” (Brooks Bowman) with Bertoncini and Vignola before the others came in at a moderate up-tempo beat. On the finale, “Perdido” (Juan Tizol), Pizzarelli and Grasso had a fun call-and-response, with Stylianou urging the audience to join in on the wordless part of the song. And of course, the audience joined those on stage to serenade Bertoncini with “Happy Birthday” to end the set.
Photos by Andrew Poretz; Feature photo from Birdland livestream
