It isn’t bad enough that there is a dearth of male jazz singers around these days, but to have Peter Cincotti out of the country for the past few years was almost too much to take. So, it was an evening of celebrating to see that after a long exile of local gigs and albums, Mr. Cincotti is back in town, sounding even better than ever and still swinging after all these years.
He’s also got a new album coming out (88 Keys and Me) which was the major impetus of his recent mini tour with Tony Glausi/tp, Leve Sadler/b and Joe Nero/dr. He mixed a healthy does of the upcoming material with vintage Cincotti croonings and piano man finger work for the uptempo 80 minute set.
Originally pegged as strictly a “jazzer”, Cincotti has wisely chosen to mix his own impressive compositions in with some jazz standards and pop covers. As he describes his style, “My genre is the piano”, and he showed the width and breath of his talents, with a funky take of the Joplin ragtime “The Entertainer” in full time form, complete with lyrics. Nero supplied a hip back beat for an swaggering “Sweet Lorraine” and Cincotti was in vintage seductive form as he suavely carved out “Sway” with rich piano work and bedroom eyes vocals.
He tapped into his inner lounge lizard on “New York State of Mind” and traded off solos with the street festival trumpet tones of Glausi over the deep groove of “I Love Paris”. He even revamped Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” and turned it into a quirky tour de force with some snappy piano work and vibrant brass soloing by Glausi.
But what sets Cincotti apart from all of the posers that simply try to be an imitation of Torme’ or Sinatra is that he’s just as gifted as the pen as the sword. He tapped into his inner Jerry Lee Lewis as he boogie’d hard on “Killer On The Keys”, was dreamy on his anthem “Goodbye Philadelphia” and mixed Broadway with Tin Pan Alley during his dramatic and foreboding “Witches Brew”. His evening was climaxed by a pair of arias at the piano, with a reflective and romantic Billy Joel-ish “Once In A Lifetme” and a heart on sleeve story on the autobiographical “Ghost Of My Father” that didn’t leave dry eye in the house.
Few artists can bridge the gap between the traditional American Songbook with a look towards the future, but as Cincotti and company showed on a rousing and full fisted “St. Louis Blues”, he can make the old sound new, and the new sound optimistic.
Upcoming shows at Catalina’s include Louie Beltran 05/05, Samvel Yervinyan 05/12, Suren Arustamyan 05/14, Pete Escovedo 05/20, Poncho Sanchez 05/27-29 and Dave Weckl with Tom Kennedy 06/02-04