Jazzing it up at Living Lord Lutheran Church

Thomas Pizzi and his fellow jazz musicians only plan how to start and end their songs. It’s the nature of jazz, a musical genre full of improvisation, he said.

“Everything that happens in the middle (of a song) is to be determined on the spot,” said Pizzi, noting musicians tweak the melody as they play.

Pizzi, the minister of music at Living Lord Lutheran Church, has organized a jazz concert for April 27. It will feature Pizzi himself as a pianist, John DePaola on trumpet, Scotty Wright on vocals, Bruce Wallace on bass and Rich MacDonald on drums. The men are all professionals with decades in the musical industry.

There’s no cost to attend, but a freewill offering is welcome.

Pizzi hopes to share the spirit of jazz by putting fresh spins on familiar songs, like “Wonderful Words of Life.”

“Jazz, by it’s definition, is collective improvisation,” he said. “I have to be wholly democratic in the way I approach the music.

“We have to be able to listen and be aware of somebody else,” he said. “In a nutshell, jazz is not a specific music or a finite group of songs. Jazz is an approach to playing music.”

During concerts, Pizzi said he often spends time between songs talking about different jazz techniques and concepts with the audience. Topics might include the specific manipulations on the songs or the culture and history behind jazz.

“It’s always more enjoyable to listen to something when you understand what’s happening with it,” Pizzi said.

Pizzi himself spent years playing in Atlantic City casino showrooms and even spent a few years in the late 2000s as the band leader in Taiwain’s Brown Sugar Live & Restaurant, which was known for its jazz, blues and salsa performances.

Pizzi he said he considers the other performers “among the top in their field.”

Both Pizzi and California-based vocalist Scotty Wright emphatically said spontaneity is inherent to jazz performances.

In picking their songs, Pizzi said, performers play off each other’s strengths. They carry that communication from the planning phase all the way through their performances, communicating their intentions with their music or glances across the stage.

Wright said the audience isn’t so much a participant in the music, as “a voyeur in watching the process” of how the jazz music happens.

“You want to tell a story when you’re improvising,” Pizzi said.

Pizzi said a Christmas-time jazz concert at Living Lord Lutheran drew about 200 people. He hopes to have similar attendance at the upcoming event.