Jazz Articles about John Pizzarelli

John Pizzarelli: Knowing You

by Jim Santella
April 27, 2005

John Pizzarelli's “Knowing You" flows with a laid back demeanor as organ, piano, bass, and drums surround the singer/guitarist with cool sensations. His velvety voice brings the title track's hip lyrics to life and sets your mind at ease. Listening to Pizzarelli sing this collection of standards and popular songs can turn your day into a floating daydream. No sense worrying about deadlines. As Dave Frishberg's lyrics remind us on two of the album's selections, this is a time to ...

John Pizzarelli: Knowing You

by Woodrow Wilkins
March 30, 2005

When recording fresh interpretations of classic songs, artists do best when they go beyond simply singing or playing them the way they were written. To make it worth doing, the modern artist must make the music his own. John Pizzarelli is exceptionally adept in accomplishing this. This fact is evident on the opening track of his new album, Knowing You. Including a dazzling guitar solo/vocal scat, and quoting the percolating jingle from an old Maxwell House commercial, Pizzarelli claims full ...

John Pizzarelli: Knowing You

by C. Michael Bailey
March 3, 2005

Vocalists John Pizzarelli and Harry Connick, Jr. have a few things in common. They are both young and attractive, hyper-talented men with loads of respect for the Great American Songbook. But that is where the comparison essentially ends. Connick, a pianist, concentrates primarily on the “standard" standards and his own compositions. Pizzarelli, a guitarist, concentrates on the whole of the standards expanse, devoting less to his own writing. Also, Connick enjoys a greater commercial popularity than Pizzarelli, a fact I ...

John Pizzarelli: Bossa Nova

by Franz A. Matzner
April 14, 2004

Warm and gentle, John Pizzarelli’s latest release, Bossa Nova , takes you on an affectionate, musically articulate, and eventually exasperatingly quaint tour of bossa nova’s Brazilian heritage. Not surprisingly, Bossa Nova features several Antonio Carlos Jobim compositions, including a gracefully mature rendition of “The Girl From Ipanema,” the cleverly arranged “So Danço Samba,” and an insightful version of “Aguas De Marco” which beautifully accentuates the subtle balance between humor, tenderness, and profundity that defines the original’s lasting ...

John Pizzarelli Trio: Live at Birdland

by C. Michael Bailey
May 3, 2003

Live at Birdland is two hours, twelve minutes, and sixteen seconds the finest of the American Musical Art form. The John Pizzarelli Trio celebrated its tenth anniversary at New York City's Birdland club this past year and Telarc was there to capture the festivities. How fortunate we are.

Forty-three-year-old John Pizzarelli is jazz royalty. His father, Bucky Pizzarelli, pioneered the guitar style his son was later to perfect. Pizarrelli’s sweet tenor and deft guitar playing drive him to ...

John Pizzarelli and The George Shearing Quintet: The Rare Delight of You

by C. Michael Bailey
May 1, 2002

Urbane and Gentlemanly Guitar and Piano...

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue... It is this romance that populates the Telarc Jazz collaboration between master of the popular song John Pizzarelli and jazz deity George Shearing. John Pizzarelli's guitar is a perfect fit for what has become known as the “Shearing Sound." His singing will, at once, make the listener think of Shearing's collaboration with the “Velvet Fog" Mel Tormé ( An Evening with George Shearing and Mel Tormé ...

John Pizzarelli: Let There Be Love

by AAJ Staff
December 1, 2000

After a decade of recording as a leader on several labels like RCA and Chesky, John Pizzarelli seems to have found a home at Telarc Jazz. Fast on the heels of his last his first Telarc trio release, Kisses In The Rain, Pizzarelli is delving even further into the style he established there: romantic standards.The Telarc packaging promotes that concept to an even greater extent than it did in Kisses In The Rain. For Let There Be Love’s ...