Photos: John Pizzarelli Debuts New Album 'Stage & Screen' at Birdland

Acclaimed guitarist/vocalist John Pizzarelli is celebrating the 40th anniversary of his debut album with a collection of classic songs from Broadway and Hollywood, Stage & Screen, with a new album via Palmetto Records. It features songs spanning nearly a century, given new life by Pizzarelli, bassist Mike Karn and pianist Isaiah J. Thompson. Pizzarelli is celebrating with performances at Birdland this week.

John Pizzarelli may play seriously great music but he sure makes the evening fun.

Check out the photos from last night's performance below!

World-renowned guitarist and vocalist John Pizzarelli has dedicated many of his albums to the great songwriters and performers who have helped to establish the Great American Songbook and the pop music canon: Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney, Richard Rodgers, and Duke Ellington, to name a few. With his new album, Pizzarelli and his remarkable new trio cast a wider net to explore other sources for the most immortal songs of the past century: the Broadway stage and the silver screen.

The album just released via Palmetto Records, Pizzarelli's Stage & Screen finds inspiration in classic songs from Broadway musicals and Hollywood films. The cleverly chosen repertoire spans nearly nine decades, starting with a pair of songs from the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette ("I Want To Be Happy" and "Tea For Two") and leading into the 21st century with "I Love Betsy" from Jason Robert Brown's "Honeymoon in Vegas" - a stage musical based on the 1992 film. In between there are pieces by such iconic songwriters and composers as Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, Leonard Bernstein, Sammy Cahn, and Jule Styne, and songs immortalized in cinema favorites like Casablanca.

Stage & Screen also celebrates the 40th anniversary of Pizzarelli's 1983 debut recording, I'm Hip (Please Don't Tell My Father). Over the ensuing four decades he's become one of the most acclaimed interpreters of classic and modern song and an influential advocate for the continuing evolution of the standards songbook. His albums have delved into that rich pool of song from a variety of angles, Stage & Screen providing an inviting new twist.

"In thinking about some of the songs that I really love to play, it struck me how many of them come from either a Broadway show or from a movie," Pizzarelli explains. "An idea like Stage & Screen frees me to explore a wide range of songwriters and eras, and it continues to offer a wealth of new possibilities."

He's joined for the occasion by his new trio featuring bassist Mike Karn and pianist Isaiah J. Thompson, two tremendous talents with whom Pizzarelli quickly discovered a scintillating chemistry, even with a two-year disruption to their touring schedule. While Karn has been working with Pizzarelli for the last seven years, Thompson joined the trio only three years ago, in late December 2019. A few months later his tenure was interrupted by the pandemic, only for the band to pick up again in August 2021. Stage & Screen was recorded a few short months later, but the band sounds like it's logged years on the road.

Photo Credit: Stephen Sorokoff