This entertaining show may be billed as a jazz quartet, but as aficionados know, John Pizzarelli has a secret weapon: his dad. As he tells you, Bucky Pizzarelli, now 87 and seated beside him, has a long and distinguished career on guitar performing with Vaughn Monroe and other big bands of that era, but with his son John—and another son, Martin on bass—(that must be the family rebellion), the show at the Carlyle that started this week is comprised of smooth standards sprinkled with patter, as if son John, front man on guitar who also sings, needs to tell Bucky just where to come in.
With Tony Tedesco on drums and Larry Fuller on piano, the set begins with “My Blue Heaven,” segues to “I’m Confessin’,” and “Tangerine,” and then onto a Rodgers and Hart medley: “It’s Easy to Remember,” “I Like to Recognize the Tune,” the Rodgers and Hammerstein tune from South Pacific, “This Nearly was Mine,” returning to Rodgers and Hart’s “Mountain Greenery.” Along the way comparisons to that other Italian singer from New Jersey (Frank Sinatra) become a running gag. A highpoint is Bucky Pizzarelli’s “Body & Soul.“
In truth, both father and son are jazz legends, but John does not sing his own praises. He’s cool that way, and besides, he doesn’t have to. From beginning to end, you know you are in good hands, wishing only that the music would go on.
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