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Make Someone Happy
Danny Sinoff
Label: Cellar Music Group
Released: 2026
Duration: 00:42:50
Views: 74
Tracks
Taking A Chance On Love; I Left My Heart In San Francisco; Three Little Words; All I Need Is The Girl; Make Someone Happy; I Won’t Dance; Mood Indigo; I’m An Old Cowhand; Charade; Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word; Black Coffee
Personnel
Additional Personnel / Information
Dan Wilson — guitar (tracks 2, 6, 11); Joe Magnarelli — trumpet (track 11); Benny Benack III — vocals, trumpet (track 4); Jerry Weldon — tenor saxophone (track 1); Tyler Henderson — piano (tracks 5, 6, 8, 9)
Album Description
Danny Sinoff, an ascendant, Southwest Florida-based jazz singer, pianist and bandleader, brings his 2026 debut album, Make Someone Happy, to vinyl July 10 via Cory Weeds’ Cellar Music Group. Produced by drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. and recorded at Trading 8s Recording Studio in Paramus, New Jersey, the album features bassist Ben Wolfe, guitarist Dan Wilson, trumpeter Joe Magnarelli, trumpeter-vocalist Benny Benack III, tenor saxophonist Jerry Weldon and pianist Tyler Henderson.
First released digitally and on CD April 10, Make Someone Happy finally puts a frame around a career built in clubs, restaurants, concert settings and private engagements. “This is the culmination of what’s been happening the last twenty-five years,” Sinoff says. “Here it is.”
At the piano, Sinoff draws from Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, Red Garland, Wynton Kelly and Bill Charlap — players who shaped his sense of swing, touch and feel. As a singer, his baritone comes out of the lineage of Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett and Harry Connick Jr. He describes the singing pianist’s role as “two instruments in conversation” — the piano establishing the time and harmony, while the voice carries the story.
Owens first connected with Sinoff through Benack, who recommended him for a Florida concert. Owens arrived expecting a sideman job. “Then he opens his mouth and he sings, and I was like, whoa, this guy is really special,” Owens says. “That voice is golden. He’s got a beautiful instrument. And he loves music — that’s what’s key, and it comes out in everything that he does.” By the end of the night, he wanted to produce him.
Benack, who joins Sinoff on “All I Need Is the Girl,” has been instrumental in bringing Sinoff into the fold in NYC. “Danny Sinoff is a proud card-carrying crooner, keeping the Great American Songbook alive today,” Benack says. “His vast knowledge of his repertoire shines through in his shows. You can really feel his passion for the material. Sinoff has a sound and delivery all his own.”
Born in Newton, Massachusetts, and raised in Naples, Florida, Sinoff began classical piano lessons at four and performed professionally by thirteen. Raised fully by his grandparents, he took on an older generation’s sense of discipline and presentation; to this day, he always performs in a suit.
His mother played Vladimir Horowitz, Madame Butterfly and other classical recordings on drives to lessons. His father played Bobby Darin, Harry Connick Jr. and Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story; by fourteen, those records had begun pointing Sinoff toward the Songbook. “That was my childhood,” Sinoff says. “Two completely different angles, but both just as important. They were both nurturing me as a musician.”
When Sinoff was 15, his father became terminally ill; two years later, he died, right on the cusp of his son beginning his performing career in earnest. That father-son connection comes back at the close of Make Someone Happy with “Black Coffee,” recorded as a tribute to his father.
Sinoff later attended Berklee College of Music before returning to Florida, where he became a fixture in the region’s music scene. At Ellington’s Jazz Club on Sanibel Island, he worked with the late trumpeter Dan Miller, whose credits included Harry Connick Jr., Maynard Ferguson, Tom Jones, Woody Herman and Wynton Marsalis. He then held down a fifteen-year, two-night-a-week run at the Roadhouse Café in Fort Myers, often with longtime Saturday Night Live saxophonist Lew Del Gatto.
“That’s where you learn,” Sinoff says. “From the audience, from the musicians, from the stage. But most importantly, from being present in the moment, and listening — both to each other on the bandstand, and to the masters. Music is for the ears and the soul.”
His path has not been linear. In 2005, Sinoff had a brush with success on the New York scene, including an audition with a household-name jazz label. Drug and alcohol addiction derailed that momentum. He returned to Florida, keeping a relentless schedule — night after night, room after room, tune after tune.
“I was always trying to do what I’m doing now, but I wasn’t quite able to do it,” Sinoff says. “I had this shot before, and then I sort of lost sight of all of that — and I just kept working down here.”
After conquering drugs and alcohol with the help of a rehabilitation program — he remains clean and sober today — Sinoff was finally able to make the record of his dreams. “My life started changing,” he says. “I got clear-headed. Things just kept getting better. I don’t think I was ready then. But I’m ready now.”
Owens first helped Sinoff sort through a large archive of unreleased recordings, then decided the stronger move was to make a new album. He called Wolfe, Magnarelli and the rest of the band, and the group went into Trading 8s for a one-day session.
“My goal was to introduce him to the world,” Owens says. “We wanted to take songs that he had already sung… the best of what he already did, and we just captured it and codified it into arrangements and put the right people around him.”
For years, Sinoff had worked in trio settings, singing from the piano. On Make Someone Happy, Owens encouraged him to step away from the keyboard on select tracks, bringing in Henderson so the vocal could stand on its own. Some tracks keep Sinoff with Wolfe and Owens; others pair him with Wilson, Henderson or a horn.
Weldon shines on tenor saxophone on the album’s opener, “Taking a Chance on Love” — a buoyant standard Sinoff had performed for years, with an arrangement informed by Ahmad Jamal’s sense of space and time.
Wilson’s guitar brings a softer cast to “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” heard here in a tender duo setting. Sinoff had not planned to record the song, long tied in his mind to Tony Bennett’s 1962 version, but Wilson brought it into rehearsal with a light Brazilian feel. After moving the key to A-flat, the performance became a quiet surprise.
“Three Little Words” races. In the studio, Sinoff counted off his arrangement faster than intended; deftly riding that high velocity, he turned it into a charged session highlight.
“All I Need Is the Girl,” from Gypsy, pairs Sinoff with Benack for a loose, playful exchange. On the day of the session, a delayed flight sent Sinoff racing by Uber from JFK to Paramus; he arrived, stepped into the booth, and finished the track with Benack in roughly an hour.
Opening with a snare shot from Owens, Sinoff plays the hopeful bachelor, his vocal loose, assured and full of character. At Owens’ urging, Benack swoops in as Sinoff’s wingman, contributing one of his signature vocalese parts — a Sweets Edison-type melody, sly lyrical turns and a nod to “Danny Boy.”
On the title track, “Make Someone Happy,” from Do Re Mi, Henderson plays piano and Sinoff focuses solely on vocals. Sinoff connected the song to the Tony Bennett and Bill Evans recording, then chose a more direct, full-hearted reading built around a key change and a gradual vocal lift.
“I Won’t Dance” spotlights Wilson’s guitar and Henderson’s piano, bringing a modern small-group edge to the old-school classic.
“Mood Indigo” forms the quiet emotional center. After reviewing Sinoff’s chart, Wolfe urged him to return to Duke Ellington’s original harmonic conception. The two listened through Ellington recordings together, and Sinoff abandoned the substitute changes he had been using. The final recording places voice, piano and bass in spare dialogue.
“I’m an Old Cowhand,” written by Johnny Mercer, brings rhythmic humor, drawing from Sonny Rollins’ Way Out West and the Connick version Sinoff first knew. Henderson plays piano on the track, which moves between Latin groove and swing. “It just became this super swinging thing,” Sinoff says.
A kinetic “Charade,” by Henry Mancini and Mercer, showcases Henderson prominently. Sinoff adapted the tune loosely from a Darin big-band arrangement, while Henderson pushes the performance into a language associated with McCoy Tyner.
The Songbook outlier is Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word,” heard here in restrained trio form. Inspired by Bill Henderson’s Live at the Vic, it begins as a ballad before opening into a subtle pop feeling near the end.
“A long time ago, I would have thought this song would be out-of-character for me,” Sinoff says. “But I believe it’s the album’s most unexpected and interesting choice.”
Make Someone Happy ends in brooding form with “Black Coffee,” written by Sonny Burke and Paul Francis Webster in 1948. For Sinoff, it is the most personal song on the album. Wilson’s guitar adds a traditional blues undertow; Magnarelli’s trumpet solo channels the tune’s slow, low, late-night energy in eight bars.
“That’s a tune that’s been ingrained in my musical mind and heart since I was a young boy listening to Bobby Darin with my dad,” Sinoff says. “I decided to record this tune as a tribute to my late dad, and the connection we shared through Darin.” His father, he adds, loved black coffee — and martinis.
Sinoff has performed and recorded with David “Fathead” Newman, Chris Brubeck, Dan Brubeck, Jimmy McGriff, Russell Malone, Paul Bollenback, Joe Farnsworth, Herlin Riley, Ulysses Owens Jr., Benny Benack III, Jerry Weldon, Ben Wolfe and Joe Magnarelli. His engagements include Smoke, Minton’s and The Triad in New York City; Chris’ Jazz Café in Philadelphia; Vic’s Supper Club and the Fountainbleau in Las Vegas; and festivals including South Beach, Syracuse, Adirondack and Suncoast Jazz Classic in Clearwater, Florida.
Lately, Sinoff has been spending more time in New York’s straight-ahead jazz scene. “I’m brand new to New York,” he says, “but I still feel like I’m coming to New York with incredible amounts of experience.”
Sinoff is currently preparing his first Christmas album, due later in 2026, as well as his sophomore album, planned for 2027. Those projects have helped him hear Make Someone Happy not as a one-off, but as the start of something larger. “I can hear the progression of myself as a recording artist,” he says. “I’m just so excited to have people hear that progress.”
For Sinoff, the title remains his credo. “I’m just so fortunate that I get to do this,” he says. “This is my go-around, this life. Every day, I get to create something from nothing with music, and make people happy, and to connect with people through it. It’s a special power. It’s a gift. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.”
Album uploaded by Morgan Enos
