Still Grooving

Guitar master Bucky Pizzarelli turns back time as he plays on.

- Jay Lustig

THERE ISN’T MUCH EMPTY SPACE on the walls in the den of Bucky Pizzarelli’s Saddle River home. Hanging there are his three honorary doctorates and some of the paintings he has created as a hobby. Also, photos taken at various stages of his seven decades as a guitarist, including several of him at the White House, where he played for Presidents Reagan (with Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Benny Goodman) and Clinton (with Claude “Fiddler” Williams).

There is also a photo of him and his son singer-guitarist John Pizzarelli, posing with President Nixon and his wife, Pat, at their Park Ridge home in 1992. The Pizzarellis are wearing tuxedos. But they hadn’t dressed up for the Nixons.

“We knew his bodyguard, and his bodyguard said, ‘It’s his wife’s birthday. Come over and play a couple of tunes,’ ” says Bucky Pizzarelli, who turns 91 on Jan. 9. “We had another gig that night. That’s why we’re dressed up in tuxedos.”

For most of his life, it’s been like that: one concert or nightclub gig or recording session or jam session after another. So many that, from Pizzarelli’s current vantage point, most just blur together.

A lifelong Jersey resident, he was inducted into the state’s Hall of Fame in 2011. The hall’s Website describes him as “a legendary jazz guitarist who has collaborated with some of the greatest musicians, including Les Paul, Stephane Grappelli and Benny Goodman.” But that’s just skimming the surface. He also has worked with Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, Dizzy Gillespie and Nat King Cole, for starters.