Tilting at Woodwinds : Versatile Ray Pizzi Takes On Many Instruments, Including One He Invented

Among the many wind instruments played by Ray Pizzi, the strangest has to be the hossoon.

Never heard of it? Not many have. But if you’ve seen “Predator 2,” you know its sound.

“They hired me for the soundtrack,” Pizzi says from his home in Van Nuys about the 1990 alien-horror film, “to give the predator a soul with the bassoon. (Music director) Allen Silvestri flew me up to George Lucas’ studio (in the Bay Area), where he had a hundred-piece orchestra, and everything I did was totally improvised.

“Then Silvestri said, ‘Tomorrow, I want you to make a horrible noise when this thing is ripping the heart out of someone.’ Now you can’t do that with a bassoon; it either comes out sad or funny. So that night I was walking around the hotel and spied this garden hose and got an idea.”

Pizzi lopped off a section of the hose with his pocketknife and took it up to his room. After a reed was inserted, the creation gave off a suitably horrible noise and voila! , the “hossoon” (rhymes with “bassoon,” says Pizzi) was born.

Since then, Pizzi has used the hossoon to give voice to the hound in the May Tag commercial, and as the voice of the Noid in a Domino’s Pizza spot. But needless to say, it’s not his main axe.

Pizzi, who appears tonight at Vinnie’s in Costa Mesa with keyboardist Joe Massimino, credits his versatility with keeping him employed as a musician. The busy studio player claims to be proficient on all the saxes, all the flutes, all the clarinets and the bassoon.

His credits include the films “Dick Tracy,” “Grease” and “The Little Mermaid,” as well as work with Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel and John Williams. And Pizzi’s bassoon work is featured prominently in “Return of the Jedi.”

But Pizzi, 50, is more than just a session man, having gained the respect of such musicians as Moacir Santos and Dizzy Gillespie, among others, for his stimulating variety of jazz improvisation. He met Gillespie while working in the orchestra for Dinah Shore’s variety series, “Dinah and Her New Best Friends,” in the ‘70s.

“That’s a real Cinderella story,” Pizzi explains. “(Gillespie) was a guest on the show and played with the guys and said he liked the way I sounded. He was in town to do an album (“Dizzy’s Party” on Pablo) and asked if I wanted to record with him.

“I called my mother back in Boston to tell her the good news, and she was gushing with pride, squealing with delight, when all of a sudden she stops and asks, ‘Is he an Italian boy?’ ”

The Gillespie recording led to his own date with Pablo, which resulted in the album “Conception.” In addition, Pizzi has recorded a pair of albums for the Discovery label and one, “Apasionado,” for his own P.Z. label.

Pizzi, born in Massachusetts, says he started playing clarinet in the fifth grade. “I became dedicated right away. By the time I was 26, I had experience working in rock bands, in jazz clubs, strip joints, Italian concert bands, theater orchestras and with the Boston Pops.” He also studied music at the Boston Conservatory and the Berklee School of Music in Boston. His first big break came when he replaced Sal Nestico in Woody Herman’s band in 1966.

The bassoon is what brought him to Los Angeles. “I was ready to make a career move,” says Pizzi, who was teaching junior high school music at the time. “I loved working with kids but wanted to experience playing for a living.”

So, in 1970, he moved to Los Angeles to study the instrument with retired New York Philharmonic bassoonist Simon Kovar, the man Pizzi calls “the father of the bassoon.” Before long, his multi-instrumental skills were in demand on the L.A. session scene, and he was working with such names as Barbra Streisand, Shelly Manne and Frank Zappa, as well as Mancini, Mandel and Williams.

Mancini was so impressed with Pizzi’s bassoon work that when the composer was asked in 1981 to write a piece for the New American Orchestra, he penned “Piece for Jazz Bassoon and Orchestra” with Pizzi specifically in mind. In addition to the New American Orchestra, Pizzi has performed the piece with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony.

When he’s not doing session work, Pizzi makes appearances on the local club scene with his Woodwind Syndicate, a unit consisting of clarinet, flute and Pizzi on bassoon. The trio won the Western division of the Hennessy Jazz Search in 1992. He’s also been working in the bands of such vocalists as Sarah Partridge and Jelsa Palao.

“I enjoy accompanying singers,” says the instrumentalist, who backed Nancy Wilson. “The challenge is to stay out of the lyric’s way. I got a lot of experience doing that playing along with poet Frankie Nemko; I can stay out of the way. A lot of guys hate doing that, but you can’t approach it from an egotistical level when you’re playing accompaniment.”

Likewise, Pizzi has been working more and more in duos (with pianists Milcho Leviev and Paul Astin and guitarist Jim Fox, among others) as he will at Vinnie’s with Massimino.

“Duos are a lot more challenging musically, and, in many ways, a lot more fun than working with a band. It’s hard on a horn player without bass or drums, more demanding physically and musically. But a lot more happens between the musicians. When you’re doing it right, there’s this conversation, this interplay between the two of you that even people who don’t know anything about music can feel.”

* Ray Pizzi and Joe Massimino play tonight at 8 at Vinnie’s Ristorante, 270 E. 17th St., Costa Mesa. No cover. (714) 722-9264.