Remembering Uncle Zac

BY NICOLAS GRIZZLE | FROM THE SPRING 2026 ISSUE OF UKULELE

If you are an ukulele player in the Connecticut area, there’s a good chance you know about Peter Zaccagnino, aka Uncle Zac—he had several regular gigs in the state, particularly in Lower Fairfield County where he lived, but also played at events like Funky Frets, Gaithersburg, and the New York Ukulele Festival. But even if you were unfamiliar with Uncle Zac, who passed away in October at the age of 73, you likely know someone with a similar passion and love for ukulele. Both in his professional career and personal life, he inspired as many people as he could to experience the joy that playing ukulele could bring to their own lives.

“As ‘Uncle Zac,’ Pete developed a series of popular uke chord charts that became the basis of a workshop he would teach at fests,” says ukulele performer and educator Jim Beloff, who authored of some of the most well-known uke books on the planet, the Daily Ukulele series. “And as a performer, he was one of the first to primarily play a baritone uke.”

Zac, as most uke fans knew him, wasn’t a formal student of music, even though he played uke for over 60 years. He learned ukulele from his musical Italian family, mostly from his great-uncle Tony. “I had 18 first cousins, so dinner at grandmother’s house became a kanikapila,” he said in a 2019 interview with the Ukulele Fool, referring to the Hawaiian term for a large, informal musical gathering centered around ukuleles. 

Zaccagnino studied graphic design in college and through his combined interests was able to produce a set of color-coded ukulele chord charts for beginner and intermediate players that are immediately easy to read and apply. “I think in notes, he thought in colors,” says longtime friend Lew Horowitz, who met Zac around 2010 at one of his workshops. “The first day we met we were kindred spirits. He loved the music I loved, I loved the music he loved, and we took it from there.”

Zac and the Zactones was a trio featuring Zac on uke and vocals, with a clarinet and upright bass behind him. The arrangement suited his eclectic musical taste, which ranged from Leon Redbone and Tom Lehrer to uke stalwarts like Victoria Vox and Jake Shimabukuro. “He really was interested in a lot of music,” says Horowitz. “Some things I would bring to him and say, ‘You cant play this on a ukulele,’ and he would say, ‘Watch me’.” (To get a sense of his incredible musical ability, check out his original tune “The Italian Food Song” at unclezac.com, which features flawless ukulele accompaniment to his incomparable vocal dexterity.)

As a performer, Zac didn’t just play songs on a stage; he was a raconteur with an ukulele. “My ukulele superpower, I believe, is to be able to take a song, and be able to manipulate it with the right ukulele and the right timing to make it a musical story,” he told the Ukulele Fool. “And a lot of the songs that I do are story songs, with a lot of words. One of the things I pride myself in is being able to sing ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ from beginning to end.”

Zac passed away from complications of a heart attack soon after returning from his 50-year reunion at Williams College, where he had brought 25 Magic Fluke Flea ukes for his classmates to play at the gathering. “He looked so alive, he was beaming,” says Horowitz. “(His death) really stunned everybody.”

True to his nature, Uncle Zac shared the joy of ukulele with newcomers to the instrument right up to the end. “You will not find a group of people who are more forgiving, more tolerant, and want to help more to promote their instrument than ukulele players,” he said. “It’s just a wonderful environment.”