In a performance highlighting Jazz Appreciation Month, two of jazz’s greats—guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli and trumpeter Joe Wilder—come to the Smithsonian for an evening of music and conversation. The two former members of the Benny Goodman band are joined by Chuck Redd (percussionist) and Tommy Cecil (bassist). Special guest appearance by clarinetist Ken Peplowski.

Pizzarelli’s superior mastery of the seven-string guitar is unparalleled. The list of big bands and vocalists with whom Bucky has performed and recorded reads like a veritable Who's Who of jazz, including Benny Goodman, Zoot Sims, Bud Freeman, and Stephane Grappelli, George Van Eps, Carl Kress, and George Barnes.

Wilder, a versatile trumpeter, has played with everyone from Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Benny Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, and Billie Holiday to Charles Mingus, George Russell, and Dinah Washington.

Ken Peplowski, proficient on the clarinet and tenor saxophone, was a member of Goodman's last working orchestra. He has recorded and performed with musicians as diverse as Mel Torme, Charlie Byrd, Peggy Lee, George Shearing, Warren Vache Jr., Hank Jones, Dan Barrett, Leon Redbone, Jimmy McPartland, Max Kaminsky, Dick Hyman, Ruby Braff, Scott Hamilton, Howard Alden, Rosemary Clooney, and Steve Allen.

Randall Kremer is host for this very special evening. Kremer is Director of Public Affairs, National Museum of Natural History and former host of the Smithsonian Jazz Café.

This concert has been made possible in part through the generosity of the Statesmen of Jazz Foundation.

CODE: 1P0-094