The following night Berkner Hall’s stage turned white hot as jazz guitar virtuoso Frank Vignola (also a Long Island native) returned to BNL to kick off his new tour that he’s calling Frank Vignola’s Hot Club Celebrating 100 Years of Django Reinhardt.  For those not familiar, Django was a French Gypsy jazz guitarist who, despite an injury leaving just three fingers on his left hand, went on to become one of the most renowned jazz guitar players of all time.  Vignola had played BNL’s Brookhaven Center cabaret with Vinnie Raniolo on second guitar last year to rave reviews (see previous article in Opinion8ed).  This time he assembled a larger gypsy-style Django influenced jazz band that includes Raniolo, Gary Mazzaroppi (the late Les Paul’s bass player of 15 years), Zach Brock on violin, and Julien Labro on accordian, with a special guest appearance by 84 year old legendary jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli.

You can tell from listening for 10 minutes that Frank is a perfectionist.  His playing, though electrifyingly fast is both accurate and precise – whether he is playing a melodic line, a quickly shifting chord progression, or an intrincate improvisational riff, the delivery is purposeful.  Vignola, the band leader runs a tight ship and the organization of his band’s performance is equally coordinated and deliberate in contrast to the informal ambiance of the Crooked Road.  Frank is not without a sense of humor however.  In a trademark move, when several shills wandered in late and sat down in the first row, he stopped in the middle of the song to chastise them.  He then proceeded to summarize what they missed by rapidly leading the band through eight bars of each of the tunes they had played thusfar and picked up where they left off without missing a beat.