For those unaware, world-renowned guitarist and vocalist John Pizzarelli has dedicated many of his albums to the great songwriters and performers who have helped him establish the Great American Songbook and the pop music canon: Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney, Richard Rodgers, and Duke Ellington, to name a few.

With his new album, Stage & Screen (out April 21st, 2023 via ‎ Palmetto Records), Pizzarelli and his remarkable new trio cast a wider net to explore other sources for the most immortal songs of the past century: the Broadway stage and the silver screen.

Thus, Pizzarelli’s new album finds inspiration in classic songs from Broadway musicals and Hollywood films alike. Indeed, the cleverly chosen repertoire spans nearly nine decades, even starting with a pair of songs from the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette.

1. Too Close For Comfort (Mr. Wonderful)
2. I Love Betsy (Honeymoon In Vegas)
3. I Want To Be Happy (No, No, Nanette)
4. Tea For Two (No, No, Nanette)
5. Just In Time (Bells Are Ringing)
6. Some Other Time (On the Town)
7. Where Or When (Babes in Arms)
8. Oklahoma Suite (Oklahoma!)
9. Time After Time (It Happened In Brooklyn)
10. You’re All The World To Me (Royal Wedding)
11. As Time Goes By (Casablanca)
12. Coffee In A Cardboard Cup (70, Girls, 70)

This masterfully sculpted, and dutifully created new recording opens on the moody blues finger-snapper Too Close For Comfort and the fervent I Love Betsy and then brings us the guitar happy I Want To Be Happy, the luxurious Tea For Two, the rhythmically perky Just In Time (now inclusive of its seldom heard verse) and then comes the laid back, gentle front porch swing of Some Other Time.

Along next for our enjoyment is the sumptuous Where Or When and the rhythmic Oklahoma Suite and they are in turn backed by a reaching yearn within Time After Time, the playfully perky You’re All The World To Me, the album rounding out on the languishing As Time Goes By, coming to a close on the frenetically-charged Coffee In A Cardboard Cup.

In thinking about some of the songs that I really love to play, it struck me how many of them come from either a Broadway show or from a movie, Pizzarelli explains. An idea like Stage & Screen frees me to explore a wide range of songwriters and eras, and it continues to offer a wealth of new possibilities.