John Pizzarelli Photo

From: Photo Coverage: John Pizzarelli with Daniel Jobim Play Cafe Carlyle

You've probably heard a variation of this joke at a cabaret performance.  The performer will say something like "if you know the words, please don't sing along." Ann Hampton Callaway teasingly cajoles her audience to join in while she's singing a musically complex scat arrangement during her act.  When John Pizzarelli asked the The Carlyle audience to sing along as he and Daniel Jobim sang the nights closing number (Antonio Carlos Jobim's Aqua De beber), it wasn't funny.  The many Brazilians filling the seats in the Cafe  expertly chanted in Portuguese. Sometimes I find it difficult to handle the syncopated rhythms which accent the second beat of a measure in Bossa Nova, but this crowd didn't.