Keeper of the “Great American Songbook” Flame, John Pizzarelli to Unveil Stage & Screen Album April 21

The pride of Paterson, vocalist-guitarist John Pizzarelli, will release Stage & Screen, April 21 on Palmetto Records. “In thinking about some of the songs that I really love to play,” he says, “it struck me how many of them come from either a Broadway show or from a movie.” The material spans nine decades. “Tea For Two” is from the 1925 musical No No Nanette. “Too Close For Comfort” is from the 1956 musical Mr. Wonderful. John’s father, guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli [1926-2020], performed it with sax man Zoot Sims [1925-1985]. He goes the solo guitar route for Leonard Bernstein’s 1945 “Some Other Time” from On The Town. He makes a samba out of “Where Or When” from the 1937 Rodgers and Hart musical Babes In Toyland. After reprising the 1947 Sinatra “Time After Time” hit from the movie It Happened In Brooklyn, he does “You’re All The World To Me” from the 1951 Fred Astaire film Royal Wedding. Apparently, what’s old is new again.

“With a new arrangement, you can change the meaning of a song. That’s what we’ve been doing all of our lives as jazz musicians—trying to figure out how to make these classic songs different.” A Grammy winner for producing James Taylor’s 2021 American Standard, Pizzarelli will perform May 5 at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown and May 6 at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank.