UAB’s Alys Stephens Center presents jazz guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli on March 11

World-renowned jazz guitarist and singer John PizzarelliWorld-renowned jazz guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli, who has grown a winning international career by singing classic standards and late-night ballads, will perform Saturday, March 11, presented by the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center.

A brilliant guitar player, he performs classic pop, jazz and swing, while setting the standard for stylish modern jazz. Using greats like Nat “King” Cole and Frank Sinatra and the songs of writers like Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen as touchstones, Pizzarelli is among the prime revivalists of the great American songbook.

Pizzarelli, considered a jazz virtuoso, has expanded that repertoire by including the music of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Tom Waits, Antônio Carlos Jobim, and Lennon-McCartney. His tours take him throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Japan.

For his Alys Stephens Center performance, he will be joined by his brother Martin Pizzarelli, on double-bass, drummer Tony Tedesco and Larry Fuller on piano, together known as the John Pizzarelli Quartet.

The performance is set for 8 p.m. in the Alys Stephens Center’s Jemison Concert Hall. Tickets are $32, $45 and $57. Buy three or more tickets to this performance and save 30 percent off the total purchase. ASC members receive $10 off tickets. For tickets, call 205-975-2787 or visit www.AlysStephens.org.

UAB students and faculty may purchase $25 tickets; a limited number of $25 tickets are available for each show. All UAB students, faculty and staff may receive a 20 percent discount on single tickets.

Pizzarelli was called “Hip with a wink” by Town & Country, “madly creative” by the Los Angeles Times and “the genial genius of the guitar” by The Toronto Star. When he performed with his wife, singer/actress Jessica Molaskey, and his father, guitar legend Bucky Pizzarelli, they were labeled “the First Family of Cool” by the San Francisco Chronicle and “the von Trapps on Martinis” by The New Yorker. According to The New York Times, “the Pizzarelli-Molaskey duo are as good as it gets in any entertainment medium.”

In addition to being a bandleader and solo performer, Pizzarelli has been a special guest on recordings for major pop names such as James Taylor, Natalie Cole, Kristin Chenoweth, Tom Wopat, Rickie Lee Jones and Dave Von Ronk, as well as leading jazz artists like Rosemary Clooney, Ruby Braff, Johnny Frigo, Buddy DeFranco and Harry Allen.

After his smash success with the Boston Pops, he was hailed by the Boston Globe for “reinvigorating the Great American Songbook and re-popularizing jazz.” And the Seattle Times called him “a tour de force” and “a rare entertainer of the old school.” Before a recent show in the Northwest, the local paper quipped, “John Pizzarelli is so impossibly cool, he shouldn’t be legally allowed to enter Oregon.”