Zack Danziger is the kind of musician who makes anyone he plays with sound even better. In two series of shows, one established at Sam's Pizza in Northampton and a new one at Side Street Cafe in Florence, Danziger regularly proves that. In both venues, he books shows and then sometimes sits in with his guests, most often on guitar or upright bass. He also is a member of swing band the O-Tones, and plays with many another Valley musician besides.
It takes a major breadth of knowledge to pull off the multiple-genre playing he's largely mastered, and Danziger possesses that kind of knowledge thanks to a combination of music and performance degrees and many years of practicing his art on stage. He is grounded in the more esoteric realm of jazz, but, as Danziger said in a recent interview, he gets tired of doing one thing for too long—he is apt to take a detour into other genres, then return to jazz.
Though he's modest about his abilities, such wide-ranging habits give him a remarkably quick grasp of the entirety of songs. The playing that comes from that grasp is graceful, often encompassing multiple parts on the guitar, from walking bass to chords and melody.
Danziger says discovering the ability to learn by ear was a great help to him early on. At his father's urging, he tried his hand at the classical world in order to pursue his musical education, and that brought him to a two-day audition for the Manhattan School of Music. Though Danziger says he was in over his head for the playing and reading portions of the audition, the ear-training part showed him what he could do well and do easily.
"I was in a room with about a hundred auditioners, and the guy was behind the piano so you couldn't see what he was doing, and he says, 'I'm going to play something and I want you to write it down. By the way, I'm in the key with one flat,'" says Danziger. "Then he plays a little section, and he and the other professors came walking down the aisles, and if you had a clue, you got to stay. If you didn't, you were dismissed. I stayed. Then he did it again and made it more difficult and I stayed again, and he made it even more difficult and I stayed again. At the first round, about 90 percent were dismissed. I was like, 'Yo, I've got good ears! Something's going on—I can write music and hear music, I can do it in my head.' So it was a success even though I didn't get in."
Danziger pursued his strengths and ended up with a master's degree in jazz performance from Queens College. He came to New England as a music teacher, and currently teaches music at Powder Mill Music School in Southwick, all the while maintaining an extraordinarily full schedule of gigs.
All those years of study and performance helped Danziger develop his all-encompassing guitar style, a mix of confident rhythm and playful melody. Of his style, Danziger says, "It's an amalgam. I like playing sweetly. And then when it comes to playing faster, I use the pick, but I don't like the pick when it's making a lot of noise. Although I wish I could play like a monster, like Django and all the other superstars out there, I have a more legato sound. I'm a lefty playing a righty guitar. It's good for the left hand, but I always felt insecure about my right hand. I got around it one way or another, but I can hear the difference when I watch other players and I think, 'That is a natural, natural guitarist. Whereas I'm faking it.'"
Of course, it could be argued that faking it really well is one and the same as playing really well. And when Danziger backs up a singer or sits in with a band, it's just that brand of skill he employs, filling in the gaps and propelling songs with an easy, often understated confidence.
In addition to his love for jazz standards and his many gigs playing jazz, Danziger professes a strong love for lyrics and for creating original compositions with vocals. He is currently involved in recording an album of original music (and one cover) with the aid of producer Joel Martin, a highly acclaimed pianist who, Danziger says, has worked with Stevie Wonder and Kathleen Battle. Danziger adds, "With someone like that in my corner, it's the wind in my sails. This is what I've been waiting for." Danziger has dubbed the project Sun Is All We Need and, he says, "It's the be-all and end-all of me, my raison d'etre."
So keep an eye out for Danziger's album soon, and in the meantime, you can check out his progress at his website, www.zackdanziger.com, where you can also get the full schedules for his two music series.
