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Valley native Jerry DePizzo returns to rock Packard
o.a.r. concert
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
The last time O.A.R. played in Youngstown, things were different.
It was in 2000 at the Varsity Club, the short-lived rock’n’roll club on Market Street in the Uptown.
When the bar got packed and the crowd was jumping, the floor would undulate in a way that was kind of scary.
O.A.R. – which includes Liberty native Jerry DePizzo on saxophone – will return to the Mahoning Valley tonight but the floor will not be doing the wave.
Instead, O.A.R. will headline a concert at Packard Hall in Warren, where there will be a lot more fans, and more stable footing.
DePizzo, a 1997 Liberty High graduate, has been living in Columbus for about 20 years.
But Ray Vitullo, who was the band director at Liberty High in the ’90s, hasn’t forgotten his former student-musician.
“He was a leader, a role model for the program,” said Vitullo. “He helped me move the program forward. He was the type that I wanted the others to emulate.”
DePizzo was a sax player in the LHS jazz ensemble, but he insisted on switching over to drums.
Vitullo remembers it well.
“He came to me at one point wanting to play the drums, but I wasn’t interested,” said Vitullo. “We didn’t need any more drummers, and he had been developing really well as a sax player. I said, ‘I don’t think so’ but he was persistent and lobbied me. So I made a deal. I said play drums for marching band under the condition that once it ends, you go back to the sax. But he was so good at drums that he ended up being my section leader. So I was counting on him for drums, too.”
Vitullo said DePizzo was hardworking and serious, and always wanted to learn. “He did whatever he was asked to do, and never missed practice,” said Vitullo, who left the post in 2000.
DePizzo first picked up the sax as a fifth-grader at E.J. Blott Elementary School, under the direction of George Bonamase, who was the Liberty middle- school band director at the time.
Michael Summers, who is the current band director of Liberty High, said DePizzo’s success as a rock musician inspires his students, and many are going to tonight’s concert to see their famous forebear.
It’s clear that Liberty High hasn’t forgotten DePizzo, and the reverse is also true.
Summers pointed out the generosity that DePizzo has shown to his alma mater and its music program. O.A.R. has made at least five donations to Liberty High over the years, totaling nearly $90,000, which has been used to purchase musical instruments for the band and computers.