Tony Rizzi

**daveg** · 02-10-2024, 02:35 PM

DG

**rpjazzguitar** · 02-10-2024, 06:41 PM

Anybody know if those charts are available?

**grahambop** · 02-11-2024, 11:20 AM

No idea re. charts, but I found some interesting info about Tony Rizzi here:

Just a moment...

**daveg** · 02-11-2024, 12:35 PM

Tony Rizzi is one of my guitar heroes in the sense that he inspired me to devote much of my music time to arranging and recording standards for five guitars. I have had a succession of 8 and 16 track digital recorders over the years and spent many enjoyable hours exploring ways of making it interesting with the many different tones available from my Les Paul Recording guitar. Splitting the standards into 8 bar sections makes it easier on the 16 tracks. I have tremendous admiration for the guys on the CC recording who were able to read and sustain their performances the way they did.

The Frank Comstock album is available on Streaming platforms but (AFAIK) not the CC recording which is why I uploaded this here.

There is also a French group (Guitars Unlimited) who have some recordings in a similar vein to Rizzi's and are worth searching for on the streaming platforms.

DG

P.S. The article linked above mentioned the Rizzi's group backed Joe Pass. I believe that what actually happened was that Pass recorded over the original Rizzi tapes. I must dig out that recording and play it again!

**grahambop** · 02-11-2024, 01:00 PM

I have one of the French ‘guitars unlimited’ LPs, it was disc 2 of a CBS Django Reinhardt compilation thing I bought years ago. It had no details on the sleeve, so I was always baffled by who was playing all the extra guitars which had obviously been dubbed over Django’s! Only found out via the internet a few years ago who was on those tracks.

You might be interested in my own attempt at a similar ‘guitar orchestra’, I recorded the Gil Evans arrangement of Boplicity on 6 guitars. It was fun but a lot of hard work, what with assembling all the video segments etc, I doubt I’ll do it again!

**grahambop** · 02-12-2024, 08:54 AM

There are some guitar arrangements here by Pierre Cullaz (of Guitars Unlimited), mainly for 2 guitars, bass and drums, although it says some are for more guitars.

It’s in French but you can run it through google translate or something, the arrangements are listed further down.

Ressources pedagogiques : les arrangements de Pierre Cullaz

**ragman1** · 02-12-2024, 09:29 AM

Originally Posted by grahambop

Amazing Attachment 108677

**RJVB** · 02-12-2024, 09:32 AM

Nice, but I still prefer Tony Riso

**supersoul** · 02-12-2024, 09:49 AM

Originally Posted by grahambop

I have one of the French ‘guitars unlimited’ LPs, it was disc 2 of a CBS Django Reinhardt compilation thing I bought years ago. It had no details on the sleeve, so I was always baffled by who was playing all the extra guitars which had obviously been dubbed over Django’s! Only found out via the internet a few years ago who was on those tracks.

You might be interested in my own attempt at a similar ‘guitar orchestra’, I recorded the Gil Evans arrangement of Boplicity on 6 guitars. It was fun but a lot of hard work, what with assembling all the video segments etc, I doubt I’ll do it again!

that was awesome!
Six of the same guitar playing those close Gil Evans' harmonies is really strange sounding, almost like hearing a metal vibraphone or something.

**grahambop** · 02-12-2024, 01:45 PM

Thanks! yes it is quite a strange sound, different from playing chords.

**rpjazzguitar** · 02-12-2024, 04:40 PM

Originally Posted by grahambop

There are some guitar arrangements here by Pierre Cullaz (of Guitars Unlimited), mainly for 2 guitars, bass and drums, although it says some are for more guitars.

It’s in French but you can run it through google translate or something, the arrangements are listed further down.

Ressources pedagogiques : les arrangements de Pierre Cullaz

Thank you so much for this link. I looked at a bunch of them. Laura is for 5 guitars and bass.

**sgcim** · 02-12-2024, 05:40 PM

Originally Posted by daveg

DG

Wow! Thanks for sharing some more of your incredible jazz guitar treasures with us.
Another swinging multi-guitar album was Johnny Carisi's arrangements of the songs from the musical, "Showboat" which as an added plus had the great Phil Woods and Bob Brookmeyer as soloists. IAmong the "guitar choir" were Billy Bauer, Jimmy Raney, Barry Galbraith, and Bucky Pizzarelli.

I found the vinyl in my local library, and taped it on my reel-to-reel recorder to give you an idea how long ago this was.
A friend of mine who studied with Billy Bauer got to play the original arrangements at BB's 'guitar ensemble night' with top NY pros back in the day.
I don't know what happened to those charts:

**sgcim** · 02-12-2024, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by grahambop

I have one of the French ‘guitars unlimited’ LPs, it was disc 2 of a CBS Django Reinhardt compilation thing I bought years ago. It had no details on the sleeve, so I was always baffled by who was playing all the extra guitars which had obviously been dubbed over Django’s! Only found out via the internet a few years ago who was on those tracks.

You might be interested in my own attempt at a similar ‘guitar orchestra’, I recorded the Gil Evans arrangement of Boplicity on 6 guitars. It was fun but a lot of hard work, what with assembling all the video segments etc, I doubt I’ll do it again!

Sounds great! Did the Hal Leonard score include transcriptions of the solos from the recording, or were they your own solos?
In any case, they sounded great!

**sgcim** · 02-12-2024, 06:29 PM

I had no idea that The Guitars Unlimited were a French group.

They were very good arrangements of movie themes and standards, but it's been so long since I heard them, I can't recall if there was a significant amount of good jazz improvisation on them.

**daveg** · 02-12-2024, 06:35 PM

Originally Posted by sgcim

I had no idea that The Guitars Unlimited were a French group.

They were very good arrangements of movie themes and standards, but it's been so long since I heard them, I can't recall if there was a significant amount of good jazz improvisation on them.

There are both US and French "versions" of Guitars Unlimited.

The French version was more in line with Tony Rizzi.

DG

**rpjazzguitar** · 02-12-2024, 06:37 PM

Strings Attached, led, with Jack Wilkins, Joe Cohn, Mark Whitfield and Vic Juris, played some 4 guitar arrangements, which I think Jack did.

So much great music, but not necessarily any way to get most of the charts. Jack's website mentioned a Hal Leonard book that has an Mingus arrangement.

**grahambop** · 02-12-2024, 07:04 PM

Originally Posted by sgcim

Sounds great! Did the Hal Leonard score include transcriptions of the solos from the recording, or were they your own solos?
In any case, they sounded great!

Thanks! Yes the HL book has all the solos too, but I didn’t play them, I came up with my own solos.

The book is in concert key but of course it’s the wrong octave for guitar (and some parts are in bass clef), also it’s really a reference/study score so it’s a bit small for sight reading. So I laboriously typed it all out in Finale, transposed it an octave, converted the bass clefs to treble, then extracted the 6 parts. Quite an effort, but I couldn’t think of any other way to do it!

**rpjazzguitar** · 02-12-2024, 08:24 PM

Originally Posted by grahambop

I have one of the French ‘guitars unlimited’ LPs, it was disc 2 of a CBS Django Reinhardt compilation thing I bought years ago. It had no details on the sleeve, so I was always baffled by who was playing all the extra guitars which had obviously been dubbed over Django’s! Only found out via the internet a few years ago who was on those tracks.

You might be interested in my own attempt at a similar ‘guitar orchestra’, I recorded the Gil Evans arrangement of Boplicity on 6 guitars. It was fun but a lot of hard work, what with assembling all the video segments etc, I doubt I’ll do it again!

Great job! The horn parts really work on guitars!

**grahambop** · 02-13-2024, 04:52 AM

Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar

Great job! The horn parts really work on guitars!

Thanks! I had to de-tune the 6th string for one of the parts (I think it was the tuba), it went down to Db or something. Everything else fitted on the guitar ok.

**sgcim** · 02-13-2024, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by daveg

There are both US and French "versions" of Guitars Unlimited.

The French version was more in line with Tony Rizzi.

DG

I think I only heard the US version, because it wasn't as jazz-oriented as the Tony Rizzi. I found the Rizzi album of Frank Comstock's music, and it was some great writing and playing. Young Pete Christlieb was burning, even back then.

**daveg** · 02-14-2024, 05:04 AM

Originally Posted by sgcim

I think I only heard the US version, because it wasn't as jazz-oriented as the Tony Rizzi. I found the Rizzi album of Frank Comstock's music, and it was some great writing and playing. Young Pete Christlieb was burning, even back then.

Look also for the "Dave Pell Octet". Rizzi plays on a lot of those recordings.

DG