Centennials are a convenient hook to build concerts around. Last year, the big celebrations were all for jazz musicians, but 2005 is shaping up to be the year of songwriters: Harold Arlen and Jule Styne have each already had two major concerts in the city held in their honor.

On Wednesday, Michael Feinstein held an intimate celebration, co-starring Klea Blackhurst and Jeff Harner, for Styne as part of his triannual concert series at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. As outstanding a singer and pianist as Mr. Feinstein is, what he does better than anyone is share his love of the songbook. He talks to you like a friend and when he discusses the great songwriters, he stresses anecdotes from his own relationships with them. He not only makes a song seem extremely intimate and personal; he does the same for the facts of his subject’s life.

He began on Wednesday with two of the late Styne’s best-known show tunes, “Let Me Entertain You” (from “Gypsy”) and “Never-Never Land” (“Peter Pan”),then spent a half-hour or so imparting firsthand lore. Of the two guests, Jeff Harner is a very pleasant Broadway-style baritone at his best sticking to traditional leading-man material. He was thoroughly convincing on a medley of “I Met a Girl” (“Bells Are Ringing”) and “Fireworks” (“Do-Re-Mi”) but way out of his league on anything that needed to be done in swing time, such as the Doris Day hit “Put ‘Em in a Box.”

Klea Blackhurst, best known for her long-running one-woman show about Ethel Merman, has power, projection, and charisma. She channeled Jolson as well as Merman on big numbers from “Gypsy.” Later in the show, she had two more winners up her sleeve (and this in a sleeveless gown),both patriotic World War II-era collaborations with Sammy Cahn, the witty “That Ain’t Hay (That’s the U.S.A.)” and the sentimental “I’ll Walk Alone.”

Ms. Blackhurst is a potentially major voice on the songbook circuit. And that should keep her busy for the 20 years or so she’ll need to wait before she’s old enough to play Mama Rose in the next revival.

The second half had Mr. Feinstein spinning more Styne stories and turning “I’ve Heard That Song Before” into a ballad with a classically Styne-ian key change ending. He was most moving on “Killing Time,” perhaps the saddest thing Jule Styne ever wrote. “Every Street’s a Boulevard in New York” became a uniquely intimate anthem, and a medley of three songs from “Bells Are Ringing” was also effective. The show’s final number, “It’s Been a Long, Long Time,” in which the three led the crowd in a sing-along, was oddly anticlimactic, but the point had long since been made. It’s all over, my friend.

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In preparation for this week’s JazzItaliano festival, I listened to about a dozen CDs of recent vintage by Italian bands I had barely heard of, all of whom were appearing in New York this week. The one that took the prize was “Roberto Gatto Plays ‘Rugantino,'” recently released in the USA by Cam Jazz (499613).

If “Porgy and Bess” is the great American opera, “Rugantino” is Italy’s most outstanding contribution to the literature of New York-style musical comedy. It was composed by Armando Trovaioli, and Mr. Gatto’s jazz version of “Rugantino” finds him at the helm of an all-star band that includes the famous trumpeter Enrico Rava, pianist Enrico Pieranunzi, and sax virtuoso Rosario Giuliani (who is appearing tonight through Sunday at Smoke).

On the whole, “Roberto Gatto Plays ‘Rugantino’ ” is a worthy heir to such classics of the genre as the breakthrough “Shelly Manne Plays ‘My Fair Lady’ ” and the remarkable Cannonball Adderley “Fiddler on the Roof” album. It makes me wonder: when are we going to get “Terrence Blanchard Gets ‘Wicked’ ” or “Jane Monheit Goes ‘The Full Monty’ “?

Mr. Gatto played here a year ago as part of Mr. Rava’s group, but this week at Sweet Rhythm, his quintet makes its American debut. The lineup is Daniele Tittarelli (alto and soprano), Roberto Rossi (trombone), Claudio Filippini (piano), and Ares Tavolazzi (bass), in addition to the leader on drums.

As a drumming bandleader, Mr. Gatto reminds me most of the late Shelly Manne. He holds the quintet together and allows the soloists liberty to go off in whatever direction they like, occasionally filling up a stop-time pause with an Art Blakey-like press roll. His playing is at center stage but never detracts from the other soloists – propulsive but never intrusive. May we see him again in the city soon.

The Roberto Gatto Quintet will perform again tonight at 8 & 10 p.m. (88 Seventh Avenue South, at Bleeker Street, 212-255-3626).