“Ladies and gentlemen,” purr dulcet tones in the dark, “the Café Carlyle is proud to present” (laughter) “after a two-year hiatus” (bigger laughter, as lights start up on John Pizzarelli hunched over and practically swallowing the on-stage microphone) “the John Pizzarelli Trio” (applause). The singer and his guitar burst into a swinging rendition of “Too Close for Comfort,” and he (and we) are back in business, listening to supreme New York jazz surrounded by those fabled Vèrtes murals draped across the candy-box boîte.
That lively but obscure Jerry Bock-Larry Holofcener-George Weiss showtune, from the 1956 musical Mr. Wonderful—“a show about me, starring Sammy Davis Jr.”—is a perfect launch pad for the newest edition of Pizzarelli at the fabled Carlyle, and it’s about time.
As is often the case, the swinging tune turns out not to be a random selection; Pizzarelli’s keen musicianship—and he might be the very best at doing what he does—is wrapped up in his folksy raconteurship, a word that won’t be found in the dictionary but defines the artist. There’s a personal connection and a story to go with the song, centering on Zoot Sims, Benny Goodman, and the venerable Bucky Pizzarelli. The latter is no longer in the house; he died of COVID-19 complications last April, at the age of 94. His son mentions him repeatedly, always with grinning eyes, throughout the set.
Pizzarelli then launches into Schwartz and Dietz’s “Rhode Island Belongs to You.” While first and foremost a guitarist, he breezes through the song’s cross-country trek—constructed of a charm-filled first refrain, a jokey-second, and a pun-packed third—mining every ounce of the intricately-crafted lyric. “Pencils come from Pencil-vania,” indeed.
The act is called “Stage and Screen,” which is precisely what you get. Songs from musicals and films, written by a disparate group ranging from Rodgers and Youmans to Sondheim and Jason Robert Brown. The multitalented troubadour, who perpetually wears an invisible jester’s cap with bells, breezes from song to song punctuated by his customary off-the-cuff commentary. Who else, nowadays, can make an Adolphe Menjou joke—and pull it off?
He showcases his most unique talent with a solo instrumental rendition—just fingers on frets—of two emotionally linked songs. A moodily contemplative “This Nearly Was Mine” leads into an altogether illuminating “Send into the Clowns.” Every tinge of Sondheim’s inner harmonies is magnified by Pizzarelli’s fingertips, culminating with the melody-line only, played on a single string. The number ends to audience silence and a collective round of sighs, until applause breaks out.
“That was fun and easy,” says the master of understatement.
He is backed by Isaiah J. Thompson at the Steinway and Michael Karn on bass. The trio—accompanied by Pizzarelli’s scat-singing, which at times seems to impossibly diverge from the rhythms emanating from his guitar—work well together, each of them taking off on intriguing solo flights but always finding their way home.
For the obligatory but thoroughly earned encore, Pizzarelli announces “I will play one final song from South Pacific, written by Rodgers and Hammerstein, till it no longer applies.” At which point he sings his gentle, powerful, self-accompanied “Carefully Taught.”
“If a jazz group should fall in the forest and there’s nobody there to pay the cover…” he muses. Although in such a case, a clutch of Central Park squirrels would no doubt throng the glade, ponying up a ransom in acorns to pay Pizzarelli’s tab.
John Pizzarelli: Stage and Screen opened April 27, 2022 at Café Carlyle and runs through May 7. Tickets and information: rosewoodhotels.com
