The New York nightclub world is back in full swing, at least at Café Carlyle. John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey, who for many years before pandemic days played an annual pre-Thanksgiving engagement at the elegant boîte on upper Madison Avenue, have once more taken up residence; and all is well with the world, or—at least—the world of nightclub jazz.
Pizzarelli is heir to generations of top swing band musicians. The son of celebrated jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, he started his career with a proverbial foot in the door, but it was young John’s musicianship that kept him on the bandstand with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Benny Goodman.
An inborn mastery of the guitar arts has kept Pizzarelli in demand. What sets him apart, though, is not only his facility as a jazz singer but his onstage personability, which combines humor, artistry, and charm (with a dash of corn). He is not so much an expert musician with stage presence as a magnetic personality who—once he sets his fingers a strumming—demonstrates that he also makes astonishing music.
John (in white dinner jacket) and Jess (in sequined black) start the Carlyle set singing and scatting their way through “Cheerful Little Earful,” that pert 1930 charmer by Harry Warren, Ira Gershwin, and Billy Rose. They next turn to a pair of local songs: the Dietz-Schwartz “When You’re Far Away from New York Town” and Rodgers & Hart’s “Manhattan.” While the latter standard is deservedly familiar, Pizzarelli manages to mine laughs as he meanders along Hart’s pathways through Greenwich Village and the island called Coney.
The pair explain that this particular act is titled “East Side After Dark,” paying homage to the nightclubs and many of the headliners of the 1950s and ’60s. Pizzarelli then embarks on the first of his colorfully tangential tales, this one leading to a funeral where Bucky (upon request) entertained the cemetery guests with—yes—the Kern-Fields “Pick Yourself Up.” This with fine solo work by Isaiah J. Thompson on piano and Mike Karn on bass. Next comes a pair of “moon” songs: the Burke-Van Heusen “Moonlight Becomes You,” for him; and the Kahal-Richman “Moonlight Savings Time,” for her, channeling singer Blossom Dearie’s rendition of that song.
In keeping with their East Side nitery theme, they laugh their way into Dave Frishberg’s “I’m Hip.” (“I dig, I’m in step, when it was hip to be hep I was hep.”) Molaskey, who in early days did a double act with Frishberg, offers her own parody lyric: “My Hip,” a medical paean to her recent replacement. Longtime fans know that rapid-paced comedy lyric-writing is among Molaskey’s talents, this being the latest sample. She is also her typically wry self, at one point referring to her partner as “my favorite husband… so far.”
Then comes a reduction of the Sérgio Mendes/Brazil ’66 arrangement of Paul McCartney’s “Fool on the Hill” and the Betty Comden-Adolph Green condensed distillation of the good old “Reader’s Digest.” (Les Misérables: “Jean Valjean no evil-doer/ stole some bread cause he was po-or/ a detective chased him through a sewer/ The End!”) This is followed by Pizzarelli’s introspective, guitar-only, non-vocal rendition of the Bernstein-Comden-Green “Some Other Time.”
After a couple of Big Band salutes, Pizzarelli switches back to his oft-performed rendition of the Youmans-Caesar “Tea for Two.” (This one features exquisite pianistics from Thompson.) Then comes a bravura performance of the Fats Waller-Andy Razaf “Honeysuckle Rose.” Pizzarelli, as usual, seemed to be having as much fun throughout the evening as any bystander; until, that is, he violently attacked the guitar for a remarkably vivid solo refrain.
The 80-minute set ends with another familiar item, Pizzarelli’s introspectively pointed rendition of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Carefully Taught.” To which Molaskey adds that they have determined to include it in all of their shows “until it no longer applies.”
John Pizzarelli & Jessica Molaskey at Café Carlyle opened November 8, 2022, and runs through November 19. Tickets and information: rosewoodhotels.com
