Lone Star

We’ve gotten very used to John Pizzarelli sharing the stage at Feinstein’s at the Regency stage with several family members and friends. His personality and talent shine particularly bright when he plays with other gifted performers. Now, for the first time in memory, he’s in the spotlight alone at Feinstein’s. Yes, he’s backed by a trio of fine musicians (including his brother Martin), but there’s not a star among them. Pizzarelli gives a good, workmanlike performance. He’s charming and funny as always, and his musicianship is superb. But, alas, the show never really takes off.

Some of the fault for this rests with the very concept of the act, titled John Pizzarelli: Some Nice Things I’ve Missed. He’s performing songs culled from his 17 solo CDs, songs that he have never before has done live — but maybe the reason he didn’t include them in any of his previous shows is that they aren’t very compelling. We found the opener, “Style is Coming Back in Style” (Lieber/Stoller), to be bland. Surely, we thought, Pizzarelli would bring something spicy and original to his next number, Rodgers & Hart’s “Manhattan,” but his rendition was unmemorable if pleasant. It wasn’t until his third song, “Lady Be Good” (George & Ira Gershwin), that things picked up.

Pizzarelli can be winning when delivering a ballad, but his lack of vocal range requires him to really work for those “sing from the heart” moments. During the first part of the show, he performed several songs that simply didn’t land. Finally, after his first stretch of hilarious patter and his flashy rendition of Dave Frishberg’s “Can’t Take You Nowhere,” he scored with a ballad, performing Sondheim’s “I Remember” with tender poignancy. He was about halfway through the program by then, and the show finally seemed to get on track.

Working solo (except for his band) gave Pizzarelli less opportunity to joke around on stage, but he did get plenty of laughs with a running gag in which he kept substituting the name of jazz great Les Paul for that of his dad, Bucky Pizzarelli. We’ve always felt that J.P. could be an excellent standup comedian or a mesmerizing monologist if he wanted to. For example, he shared an anecdote about a song that he originally heard on a Peggy Lee/George Shearing album called “Beauty and the Beat.” He revealed that the album had originally been marketed as a recording of a live concert when, in fact, it was done in a studio, with applause and other audience sounds added later. At the end of the story, he quipped, “Hey, you don’t get these tidbits at the Pajama Game” — a sly, comic swipe at fellow jazz performer Harry Connick, Jr.

Joking aside, Pizzarelli is an amazing guitarist and a winsome singer; but one of the consistent joys of his playing was always his musical relationship with Ray Kennedy, who’s no longer in the band. (We’ve heard second-hand that he’s tired of traveling). The loss is noticeable. It’s no criticism of the solid pianist Larry Fuller to say that he’s no Ray Kennedy. Meanwhile, John’s brother Martin Pizzarelli continues his competent work on the bass, and Tony Tedesco adds some pizzazz on drums. The band is very good, but it used to be fantastic.

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[To contact Barbara & Scott Siegel directly, e-mail them at siegels@theatermania.com.]