Frank Vignola's Guitar Night

Frank Vignola’s Guitar Night brings a four-piece guitar-led jazz set to Birdland: Vignola and Pasquale Grasso are listed on guitar, with Gary Mazzaroppi on bass and Alex Raderman on drums. The program draws on the standard repertoire and is part of Vignola’s regular Birdland series, conceived in the spirit of jazz guitarist John Pisano’s Los Angeles Guitar Night. The series celebrates the guitar’s many roles in jazz and ordinarily makes room for weekly guest artists, though no guest is identified for this performance.

Vignola is presented as a virtuoso whose work has made him “the guitarist of choice” for major artists and ensembles. The listing names Ringo Starr, Madonna, Donald Fagen, Tommy Emmanuel, the Boston Pops and the New York Pops among those he has played with. Guitar Night itself is a Birdland-led event rather than a separately identified touring act, built around Vignola and his musical collaborators. The supplied information does not give Vignola’s or the group’s place of origin, and it provides no reviewers’ comments. What it does establish is a recurring working format: two guitars, bass and drums approaching familiar jazz material from a guitar-focused perspective.