Article Contributed by Gratefulweb
Published on 2026-05-17
Photo: Courtesy of Frank Vignola
Frank Vignola & Pasquale Grasso, with The Birdland Guitar Night Trio, will appear at Regatta Bar in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Thursday, May 21 at 7:00 p.m.
Frank Vignola & Pasquale Grasso
with The Birdland Guitar Night Trio
Thursday, May 21
7:00 p.m.
Regatta Bar
1 Bennett Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Frank Vignola & Pasquale Grasso — Guitars
Gary Mazzaroppi — Bass
Alex Raderman — Drums
Frank Vignola’s Birdland Guitar Trio, led by guitarist Frank Vignola and featuring bassist Gary Mazzaroppi and drummer Alex Raderman, features some of New York City’s top jazz musicians. Every Wednesday night, they grace the stage of the prestigious Birdland Jazz Club, featuring special guests from some of the top names in jazz, including Bria Skonberg, Catherine Russell, Ken Peplowski, Mike Stern, Karrin Allyson, Houston Person, Pasquale Grasso, and many others.
Frank Vignola, born December 30, 1965, is one of the most extraordinary guitarists performing before the public today. His stunning virtuosity has made him the guitarist of choice for many of the world’s top musicians, including Ringo Starr, Madonna, Donald Fagen, John Lewis, Tommy Emmanuel, Lionel Hampton, the Boston Pops, the New York Pops, and guitar legend Les Paul, who named Vignola to his “Five Most Admired Guitarists List” for The Wall Street Journal.
Frank Vignola is one of the most popular and sought-after guitarists on the international music scene. His dynamic, genre-spanning music has brought him to 21 countries on three continents — and still growing — performing in some of the world’s most illustrious venues, including the Sydney Opera House, Carnegie Hall, The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, New York’s Lincoln Center, The Blue Note, and the world’s oldest indoor concert hall, Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy.
A master clinician, Vignola has also produced 42 full-length video teaching courses for TrueFire.com for all levels. His online one-on-one private lessons and online Jazz Studio continue to thrive, having reached thousands of jazz guitar enthusiasts throughout the globe. Vignola also runs three separate guitar camps across the country every year.
Gary Mazzaroppi, one of the most respected jazz bassists on the East Coast, toured extensively with the Lionel Hampton Big Band for five years. Since then, he has accompanied many jazz artists, including Red Norvo, Herb Ellis, Stan Getz, Joe Morello, Buddy Rich, Jim Hall, Barney Kessel, Clark Terry, Charlie Byrd, and Mark O’Connor.
Alex Raderman is a New York City-based drummer and percussionist. Originally from Chappaqua, New York, Raderman is a graduate of Berklee College of Music, where he studied with Ralph Peterson, John Ramsay, and Victor Mendoza. He received his master’s degree in Jazz Performance at NYU Steinhardt, where he studied with Billy Drummond and Dafnis Prieto.
A versatile musician performing in a variety of musical settings that range from jazz to pop, rock, funk, and world music, Raderman boasts an impressive resume of musicians he has shared the stage with, including The Hot Sardines, The Louis Armstrong Eternity Band directed by David Ostwald, Ralph Lalama, Houston Person, Brian Lynch, Joe Alterman, Darlene Love, Bernard Woma, and many more.
Additionally, Raderman has performed in the house jazz trio as part of the hit Off-Broadway immersive theatre production Sleep No More since 2014. He has maintained an active performance and touring schedule in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, Central America, and the Caribbean. He has performed at venues and festivals ranging from Birdland, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Smalls, Joe’s Pub, The Blue Note, and Central Park SummerStage in New York City to the Newport Jazz Festival, the Montreal Jazz Festival, the London Jazz Festival, and Blue Note Jazz Festival Yokohama.
Pasquale Grasso received the kind of endorsement most rising guitarists can only dream of. In his interview for Vintage Guitar magazine’s February 2016 cover story, Pat Metheny was asked to name some younger musicians who had impressed him.
“The best guitar player I’ve heard in maybe my entire life is floating around now, Pasquale Grasso,” said the jazz-guitar icon and NEA Jazz Master. “This guy is doing something so amazingly musical and so difficult.”
“Mostly what I hear now are guitar players who sound a little bit like me mixed with a little bit of [John Scofield] and a little bit of [Bill Frisell],” Metheny continued. “What’s interesting about Pasquale is that he doesn’t sound anything like that at all. In a way, it is a little bit of a throwback, because his model — which is an incredible model to have — is Bud Powell. He has somehow captured the essence of that language from piano onto guitar in a way that almost nobody has ever addressed. He’s the most significant new guy I’ve heard in many, many years.”
As he has done with many rising jazz stars, Metheny later invited Grasso over to his New York pad to jam and share some wisdom. He has since become a generous presence in Grasso’s life, and his assessment of Grasso’s playing is — no surprise — spot-on.
Born in Italy and now based in New York City, the guitarist has developed an astounding technique and concept informed not by jazz guitarists so much as by bebop pioneers like Powell, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie, as well as the classical guitar tradition. His digital-only EP series, available from Sony Masterworks, showcases Grasso in the solo-guitar format, where his intensive studies of both midcentury jazz and classical music meld into a signature mastery that is at once unprecedented and evocative.
His unique, innovative style is hypnotizing to watch, as his nimble fingers appear to change the six guitar strings into 88 piano keys. When not performing solo or with his trio, Grasso has been a frequent collaborator with vocalist Samara Joy. He was a special guest on several songs on Joy’s two-time Grammy Award-winning album Linger Awhile.
Grasso has also graced prestigious stages worldwide, including the Montreal Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Monterey Jazz Festival, and has appeared live on NBC’s Today show.
