John Pizzarelli
‘Better Days Ahead’ (Ghostlight Deluxe)

Thirty years ago, when the artist then known as John Pizzarelli Jr. was first being promoted as a singer by BMG, I had a conversation with a longtime friend of the Pizzarelli family, Joel Herron, a songwriter and studio musician who was composer of, among other things, the Sinatra classic “I’m  a Fool to Want You.” Good as John Jr. was as a vocalist, he was an even more accomplished guitarist, I claimed, to which Mr. Herron responded, “And he’s probably better still as a stand-up comedian.” 

All true: The consensus was clear even when Mr. Pizzarelli was barely 30 — that he was a dazzlingly well-rounded entertainer, whether singing, strumming, or cracking one-liners.

Now we learn there are even more strings to his bow, so to speak, which may be a fitting metaphor for one who plays a seven-string guitar.

The artist’s current run at the Cafe Carlyle gives us the John Pizzarelli we already know and love: the extrovert showman, with a power trio that just can’t stop swinging and charges forward with so much energy you almost expect to see steam escaping from the neck of his archtop.  

Mr. Pizzarelli has rightfully trumpeted his inspiration in the iconic King Cole Trio with Oscar Moore, saying, “He is why I do what I do.” Even so, the Pizzarelli Trio also draws on the legacy of the original Oscar Peterson Trio with Herb Ellis and Ray Brown. There are also familial and musical ties to the great New York Swing Trio, which featured John Bunch, piano, Jay Leonhart, bass, and starred John’s late father, Bucky Pizzarelli, on seven-string guitar — and which was one of the best reasons to hang around West 13th Street in the 1990s.  

The current edition of the Pizzarelli Trio co-stars the brilliant bassist whom the leader introduces as “Dr. Michael Karn” (clearly he has a Ph.D. in bassology) and a newcomer at the piano, Isiah J. Thompson. He is a major discovery.  

Only 25 (April 29 was his birthday), Mr. Thompson is already a keyboard daredevil of Petersonian proportions. Mr. Pizzarelli has worked with exceptional pianists before — Konrad Paszkudski, Ted Rosenthal, Larry Fuller, and the late Ray Kennedy, to name a few — but this is the first time I can remember him teaming with another musician who can match him idea for idea, particularly in terms of antic musical wit. 

This is not only the best of all Pizzarelli groups but the one that could redefine swing for the 21st century.

Yet his latest album gives us a completely different side of John Pizzarelli. Like other players during the pandemic (Fred Hersch, Harry Allen), this normally outgoing, extravagant entertainer responded to the challenges of the lockdown by making his most intimate, inwardly directed musical statement yet. “Better Days Ahead” is a set of solo interpretations on the music of guitarist and composer Pat Metheny. The 67-year-old Mr. Metheny’s music is generally classified as “fusion” by those who insist on declaring musical categories.  

Where Mr. Pizzarelli’s trio riles you up, gets you on your feet and shouting, “Better Days Ahead” occupies an entirely different space in the head and in the heart. This is more trance music than dance music, and even though Mr. Metheny’s ensembles are consistently on the subdued side, Mr. Pizzarelli’s solo guitar interpretations are even more interior and personal. Three tunes here, including the title piece, “Letter from Home,” and “Spring Ain’t Here,” derive from Mr. Metheny’s Grammy-winning 1989 album “Letter from Home.”  

Mr. Pizzarelli sets up certain rules: His acoustic guitar tone is consistent throughout, and rarely varies the dynamic level or tempo — he never whispers, he never shouts, he never slows down to a crawl, or speeds up so fast that he could outrun a charging locomotive. Rather, he strips the music of the composer’s accouterments and shows us what a solid composer Mr. Metheny is. 

“Better Days Ahead” is essentially, in Mr. Metheny’s treatment, essentially a Brazilian parade samba, but Mr. Pizzarelli brings out the substantially memorable tune at the core.

Mr. Pizzarelli has been including numbers from the album in his recent shows at Birdland and the Blue Note, but clearly, alas, they wouldn’t fit into the Carlyle, where the theme is songs from “stage and screen.” Yet maybe I’m only now noticing more of a Metheny sensibility in his solo numbers, including two stunning Richard Rodgers ballads, “Where or When” and “This Nearly Was Mine,” the latter based on his father’s arrangement.   

For the “stage and screen” show, Mr. Pizzarelli has introduced several new hard-swinging, very funny comedy songs into the program: Jason Robert Brown’s “I Love Betsy,” from “Honeymoon in Vegas,” and Kander & Ebb’s “Coffee in a Cardboard Cup,” from “70, Girls, 70.”  

His most convincing vocal is an encore he’s been doing for a few years now, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” from “South Pacific.” By now we’re accustomed to hearing songs about civil rights and social justice issues delivered in a big, belting Broadway baritone anthem, but Rodgers & Hammerstein made those points much more effectively with this understated song meant to be delivered in an understated way. Mr. Pizzarelli sings it like a folk song, or as if it had been written by James Taylor, and he’ll keep singing it, he tells us, “for as long as it applies.”

Perhaps that’s what he intends by quoting Mr. Metheny’s title, “Better Days Ahead.”