John Paul "Bucky" Pizzarelli was born January 9, 1926, in Paterson, New Jersey. His uncles Pete and Bobby Domenick were working musicians, and the extended family gathered at one another's homes for guitar jam sessions from the time he was a boy; he picked up guitar and banjo young, and cited the blind accordionist Joe Mooney, whose quartet included his uncle Bobby, as an early inspiration. He played guitar for a small classical ensemble during high school in Paterson.

He turned professional at seventeen, joining the Vaughn Monroe dance band in 1944. His first recording as a sideman outside the Monroe orchestra came in 1951, backing Joe Mooney. In 1952 he became a staff musician for NBC, working in Skitch Henderson's studio orchestra and with bandleader Bobby Rosengarden, and in 1964 he joined the Tonight Show Band under Johnny Carson, a chair he held for years; his television work also put him behind guest performers of every stripe, including a memorable stint tuning Tiny Tim's ukulele the day the novelty performer married Miss Vicki on the air. From 1956 to 1957 he recorded and toured under the stage name "Johnny Buck" with the pop trio the Three Suns.

In the early 1970s Pizzarelli formed a duo with guitarist George Barnes, documented on the studio album Guitars Pure and Honest (1971, A&R Records) and a live 1971 concert at New York's Town Hall. Inspired by George Van Eps, he took up the seven-string guitar around 1969, using the extra low string to carry his own bass line, and the instrument became his signature for the rest of his career. He built a run of leader dates through the decade, among them Green Guitar Blues (1972, Monmouth Evergreen), which featured his young daughter Mary on classical guitar; a co-led session with tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims, Zoot Sims With Bucky Pizzarelli (1976, Classic Jazz); and Buck & Bud (1976, Flying Dutchman) with veteran tenor player Bud Freeman. Through the same years he became one of New York's most in-demand session guitarists, appearing on recordings by Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Judy Collins, Roberta Flack, and Sarah Vaughan's two-volume The Duke Ellington Songbook (1980, Pablo). He also toured regularly with Benny Goodman until the clarinetist's death in 1986, documented on Discogs on two early-1970s live Goodman recordings on Decca, and performed with Goodman at the White House along with separate White House appearances for Presidents Reagan and Clinton and First Lady Pat Nixon.

His son John Pizzarelli grew into a guitarist and vocalist in his own right, and father and son began a recording partnership that ran for decades: 2 X 7 = Pizzarelli (1980, Stash), a program of seven-string guitar duets, followed by Swinging Sevens (1984), Contrasts (1998), and Generations (2007, Arbors). In August 1985 he appeared alongside Les Paul, Tal Farlow, and John at "Jersey Jazz Guitars," a concert at Rutgers University's Nicholas Music Center broadcast on New Jersey public radio. He also formed a lasting duo with guitarist Ed Laub, heard on Renaissance (A Journey From Classical to Jazz) (2015, Arbors), and paid direct tribute to his rhythm-guitar model on 5 for Freddie: Bucky Pizzarelli's Tribute to Freddie Green (2007, Arbors), playing the same vintage Epiphone archtop style Green favored. In 2012 he and John both played guitar on two tracks of Paul McCartney's standards album Kisses on the Bottom.

Pizzarelli continued performing into his nineties, including a 2015 session for vocalist Alexis Cole's A Beautiful Friendship (Venus Records) on which clarinetist Anat Cohen and bassist-vocalist Nicki Parrott both guest. He kept performing after a 2016 stroke and made his final public appearance alongside pianist-singer Michael Feinstein in 2018. He was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2011, received ASCAP's Jazz Wall of Fame honor in 2005, and won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the MAC Awards in 2002. He died of complications from COVID-19 on April 1, 2020, in Saddle River, New Jersey, at 94.

Pizzarelli was, first and foremost, a rhythm guitarist in the mold of his idol Freddie Green, playing clean, propulsive four-to-the-bar chords that anchored big bands, vocalists, and small groups alike without ever crowding them; his adoption of the seven-string guitar, learned from George Van Eps, let him carry a walking bass line and full chord voicings simultaneously, a texture few other guitarists of his generation attempted. He was equally comfortable in the spotlight, as an unaccompanied soloist and in duo settings with George Barnes, Zoot Sims, and later his own son John, where his touch on Great American Songbook standards became a defining sound of the swing revival. His decades as a top-call studio musician, moving between jazz dates and sessions for singers well outside jazz, made him one of the most widely heard guitarists of his era even when his name appeared only in small print, and he was a direct influence on the generation of swing-steeped guitarists that followed, including Howard Alden and Frank Vignola.