Time’s the Thing in John Pizzarelli’s Loving Tribute to George Shearing

John PizzarelliCafe Carlyle (Through March 25)Surprisingly, this is all about time. Granted, that’s not the first thing we think about when someone drops the name of George Shearing. As John Pizzarelli points out during his show at the Carlyle, the late Shearing is one of a tiny handful of iconic jazz pianists (he mentioned Count Basie and Erroll Garner) whose work is automatically identifiable from just a few notes. Most of us would make that identification through the harmony and the instrumentation: the trademark sound of the George Shearing Quintet, which he achieved through the doubling and tripling of chords and notes by the combination of the piano, guitar, and vibraphone. It’s as unmistakable as, say, the sound of the Glenn Miller Orchestra or even Thelonious Monk’s highly quirky classic quartet.Yet in listening to Shearing himself, and in John Pizzarelli’s loving tribute, it’s not only the sonic texture of the group that tells us who we are listening to, it’s the rhythm. Shearing had a unique approach to the beat — a halting quality, a slight hesitation between notes, whether he was swinging on an uptempo number or rhapsodizing on a ballad. No matter how fast or slow he played, there was always a distinctively staccato quality. That’s why you can tell it’s George Shearing even when he’s playing solo, or outside of the context of the famous quintet. It’s the time that explains why Shearing playing “Lullaby of Birdland” sounds like Shearing, whereas Ella Fitzgerald or Count Basie or anyone else doing his most famous composition does not.Time works in other ways too in this music: Shearing’s timing was perfect, in that he put together his iconic quintet just at the point that the most popular small group of the previous generation, the King Cole Trio, was being phased out. Then, in 1962, near the end of Cole’s short life, he and Shearing teamed up for “Nat King Cole Sings/George Shearing Plays,” a classic album that combined the best of both groups against the backdrop of a brilliantly orchestrated string section. Forty years after that, as Shearing, then 83, was entering the final phase of his own career, he symbolically passed along the torch to Mr. Pizzarelli when they joined forces for another milestone album, “The Rare Delight of You.”Now, roughly 20 years after that, the moment has come for Mr. Pizzarelli to celebrate the legacy of Shearing, which also, as the late pianist acknowledged to me, incorporated the many things he learned from Nat King Cole and the King Cole Trio. There’s only one song that surfaces in every manifestation — 1962, 2002, and 2023 — and that’s “Everything Happens to Me.” This is a perfect blend of Cole and Shearing, with the former’s pitch perfect, emotionally resonant lyric interpretation and the latter’s stylish and highly musical support. Cole and Shearing performed at a faster clip, playing up the ironic distance between the self-deprecating lyric and the somewhat perky tempo; the speed makes it somehow sadder. Pizzarelli and Shearing slowed it down slightly on their album, and now his current interpretation combines the best of all these previous incarnations. The Carlyle show combines select numbers from the “Rare Delight” album along with Shearing classics, among them the very famous “Lullaby of Birdland,” in the original quintet instrumental arrangement, and “Isn’t It Romantic?” The title song, “The Rare Delight of You,” by Mr. Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey, the actress-singer-songwriter who is Mrs. Pizzarelli, is one of the gems of both the 2002 album and the current show. It’s an excellent original that is singularly suited to the Shearing sound.That sound — as essayed by pianist Tadaka Unno, who sort of both looks and sounds like a Japanese Rossano Sportiello; vibraharpist Chuck Redd, who is such a solidly rhythmic player that we never miss the drums, and bassist Michael Karn in cahoots with Mr. Pizzarelli’s guitar — is simply overwhelming. To experience this immaculate foursome in such an intimate space is to immediately realize why club goers lined up around the block in front of Birdland and Basin Street 70 years ago.Time is at the heart of the music of both Mr. Pizzarelli and the late George Shearing, but it is a difficult thing to master. I would encourage Mr. Pizzarelli to take the time to reconvene this Carlyle quartet for a future album project — possibly doing new arrangements of songs that Shearing himself never got around to; who wouldn’t want to hear a Shearing/Sondheim mash-up? As for myself, I could surely use more time and space to tell you about Mr. Pizzarelli’s current album, “Stage and Screen,” which is being released next month. Recorded with his current working trio, co-starring pianist Isaiah J. Thompson and Mr. Karn, this has rapidly become one of my all-time favorite Pizzarelli projects. Keep watching this space for updates. In other words: Oh, well, we’ll catch up some other time.

Time’s the Thing in John Pizzarelli’s Loving Tribute to George Shearing

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