Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Vocalist Andy Bey Dies at 85
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
“I would follow Barry [Harris] wherever he went,” Pasquale Grasso says of one of his early mentors. “His concept of music resonated with me, and I loved how he approached it.”
(Photo: Mark Sheldon)Pasquale Grasso plays virtuosic guitar in a style that incorporates intricate harmonies and bebop phrasing with a clear, natural, unaffected sound that harkens back to a more classic era.
Hailing from Italy, he has come to be regarded as one of today’s most gifted contemporary jazz guitarists, a statement supported by Pat Metheny, who, in a 2016 interview with Vintage Guitar magazine, said, “The best guitar player I’ve heard in maybe my entire life is floating around now, Pasquale Grasso.”
A statement like that — from a master like that — surprised many, including Grasso himself, who reflects: “I remember seeing Pat Metheny for the first time at the Umbria Jazz Festival when I was around 8. I’ve always appreciated his artistry. We’ve spent some time together since then, and he invited me to his place several times to play. He doesn’t often play standards, but when he does, it’s incredible. We jammed a little before the pandemic.”
Grasso’s skills are easily recognized on his latest trio release, Fervency (Sony Music Masterworks), featuring bassist Ari Roland and drummer Keith Balla. The project showcases his evolution as an artist while staying true to his love for bebop, capturing the essence of the group’s live performances.
“The record wasn’t heavily planned,” Grasso explains. “The trio had been on tour with Samara Joy, and when we returned to New York, my manager asked if I wanted to record something with the trio. I thought, ‘Yeah, sure.’ We had been playing so much together on the road, and it felt like a nice opportunity to capture that period. We traveled worldwide, and it would be great to have something to remember it by. So, we went into the studio for about a day-and-a-half and recorded a few songs we liked.
“The concept was to play some of my favorite bebop tunes, but I also wanted to start introducing a bit of my compositions. People were always asking, ‘Do you compose? You never compose!’ So, I added a few of my pieces to the mix. I’m pleased with how it turned out. It has a very live feel — kind of unpolished, but you can hear how the trio interacts and how much we respect and care for each other as musicians. It captures the essence of how we play together.”
Grasso’s development seems a bit of unsurprising given his inherent early talents and the support system around him at a very young age.
“My parents were big jazz, classical and folk music fans,” he says. “My dad moved to Canada when he was around 16 or 17 because he had some family there, and he came to work for six months as a mechanic. When he returned, he brought a bunch of jazz records from the store. So, when my brother and I were born, they would play those records at home, and music was always present. We listened to artists like Charlie Parker, Chet Baker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk.
“My brother, Luigi, started playing before me because he had asthma and some respiratory issues. The doctor suggested that playing a horn would be a good way for him to exercise. So, my dad asked him, ‘Since you like music so much, would you like to try playing the saxophone?’ My brother said, ‘Yeah, sure,’ and he loved it. I became jealous and thought, ‘I want to play something, too.’ I told my dad, and he said, ‘OK, let’s go to the store.’ When we arrived, my dad, who loved the trumpet, wanted me to play that. But when I saw a guitar on the wall, I said, ‘I want to play that one.’ My dad tried to convince me that the guitar would be difficult because I’d need to bring an amplifier, while the trumpet would be easier. But I insisted, ‘I don’t care, I’ll bring my amp. I want to play the guitar.’ So, he got me a full-sized classical guitar that was way too big for me, but they didn’t have many options. My dad said, ‘If I buy this for you, you have to promise me you’ll practice every day,’ because we didn’t come from a wealthy family. I was just a kid, but I loved it, and the fact that my brother was playing, too, made it a game for us to play together every day. I started learning by ear.
“My mom recognized that we had some musical talent, so she got a book to learn how to read music and then taught us. We even got a little piano at some point, and my mom would play notes and say, ‘OK, turn around and tell me what notes I’m playing.’ We didn’t know it then, but we were training our ears. It turned out that my brother and I had perfect pitch because whenever she played a note, we could always guess it correctly.”
Grasso proved to be a young child with an old soul by revelling in the guitarists who have influenced him.
“I was obsessed with George Benson,” he says. “When I was 4, my dad had a vinyl record of one of George Benson’s early recordings with an organ. I played that record so much; I loved his style. My brother eventually said, ‘Enough with George Benson!’ When I was really into him, I would stand up and play my solos, singing them like he did. At the time, it wasn’t like today, where you can just go online and find millions of records daily. My dad also introduced me to Bud Powell [a musician whose approach Grasso is most often linked to], but Benson and Wes Montgomery were my first guitar heroes. I used to play everything with octaves — I loved octaves when I was a kid.
“Then Charlie Christian became one of my favorite guitarists after I listened to Wes Montgomery. I remember reading an article about him where he said he played Charlie Christian solos on the guitar for most of his young life. I thought, ‘Oh, I need to hear Charlie Christian.’ So, when I was a young teenager, my dad got me a CD of Charlie Christian, and that’s when I realized, ‘Oh, yeah, this is my new favorite guitar player.’
“Back then, especially in Italy, there weren’t many places to buy records. I had just one record, and I would listen to it constantly. I had to learn every song and part. Sometimes, I even learned the bass lines because that’s all I had to work with. I’d even try to learn the drum solos. I focused on that one record, one of the best things I could have done. Even now, I don’t like listening to many records in a week. I prefer to focus on just one, dive into it and learn all the songs deeply.”
Being a young jazz fan in Italy did come with some challenges, especially for a musician mining a more traditional brand of jazz.
“Jazz is loved in Italy, but traditional jazz wasn’t in fashion, especially in the 1990s and 2000s. At that time, everything had to be modern and mixed — fusion, funk and more. I didn’t mind that music, but it didn’t speak to me because I didn’t feel connected to it. However, there was a strong but small community of traditional jazz players, and I met many of them through various workshops. About 20 to 25 musicians played that style, but the problem was that they all lived in different places, so to play a gig, everyone had to drive four hours. And the gigs paid about 50 euros. When I was a kid, I didn’t mind because I was working and saving up the money. My parents always made sure I saved.
“To make it work, we’d organize a week-long tour, but then I’d have to go back to school, or the school would complain. My brother and I loved it. It was my favorite thing to do. My parents would drive us to the gigs, and we were excited to learn. Doing it together made it even better.”
Another challenge was finding a teacher nearby that could keep up with Grasso’s natural gifts and hunger to learn.
“There was a teacher in our town who played all the instruments — piano, saxophone, flute — and he started to teach me a bit, but he would give me piano chords to play on the guitar, which was very challenging because the guitar is a different instrument. Around that time, my brother was participating in a competition in Italy, and that’s when I met my first real teacher, Agostino Di Gorgio, who was from New York. He’s a fantastic guitar player who was living in Italy at the time, taking care of his grandfather. Agostino was from Astoria, New York, and studied with Chuck Wayne, a great guitarist. Chuck Wayne wrote two beautiful books: one about chords and the other about scales. Agostino had helped him write those books.
“When Agostino lived in Rome, my dad heard him play and liked his style. He thought maybe I should take lessons with him. So, my parents would drive me and my brother to Rome for lessons. After school, we’d drive about three-and-a-half hours from near Naples to Rome to study with him for a full day. Agostino introduced me to Barry Harris.”
As with many young musicians, Harris became a significant mentor to Grasso.
“Barry would come to Europe a couple of times a year,” Grasso said. “I would follow Barry wherever he went; his concept of music resonated with me, and I loved how he approached it. Barry once told me, ‘You have to come to New York. You need to see the scene there. There are great musicians. You must be able to play with them and be around musicians who live and breathe the music.’ So, my brother and I went. I loved it so much that when I returned home, I told my parents I had to move to New York — and I did, at 19.”
It was during these early days in New York that Grasso met the members of his trio.
“The first time I came to New York was in 2009. I came with Luigi and my friend Stefanoni. We went to Small’s Jazz Club, where a great band played. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this is incredible. This is the kind of music I love, and there are people here who play it.’ I met Ari Roland early on. We already knew about each other because we all had the same teacher, Barry Harris. Barry always told me, ‘You should check out this bass player in New York, Ari Roland. He can play anything on the bass.’ At the same time, he told Ari, ‘You should hear these two brothers from Italy.’ Ari even invited me to play at a session the next day.
“I also got to meet Keith [Balla] pretty early on. The great thing about Keith is that, while Ari is a little older, Keith is almost the same age as my brother, just two years older than me. And growing up in Italy, there weren’t many people my age who shared the same passion for the music I loved. I never had that connection with any other young guys in Italy, because they all like modern jazz, so meeting someone like Keith was special.”
While much of Grasso’s work has included solo efforts and reinterpretations of bebop classics, he remains an active sideman, leading him to work with Joy, one of jazz’s most prominent and brightest stars.
“The first time I saw Samara was in Barry’s class when she was about 15,” he says. “She was just a little kid, but I was amazed by her voice. We became friends over the years, and we eventually recorded together. After doing her first album, Samara Joy [Whirlwind Records], after COVID, when everyone felt down, we were back on the road, playing all over the U.S and Europe and having a great time.”
Grasso played on her next album, Linger Awhile (Verve), which won a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album, cementing her place as a rising star in jazz and raising Grasso’s visibility. “She’s flying high now, and seeing her grow has been an incredible journey,” he says.
Pasquale Grasso’s journey has been equally incredible, and his status continues to rise, as evidenced by the fact that in 2024, DownBeat recognized him as Rising Star Guitarist of the Year in its International Jazz Critics Poll. He has several exciting new projects and residencies at New York clubs, including Birdland and Mezzrow. Grasso’s brand of bebop and swing will undoubtedly continue to garner much-deserved praise. DB
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
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