Album Review: Steven Pasquale SOME OTHER TIME With John Pizzarelli Sweet, Sublime, and Sensational

Center Stage Records recently kicked open the door of their new label with a bang by releasing two prestigious recordings - the original cast album of HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO and the third solo album for quintessential Broadway leading man Steven Pasquale.  The album SOME OTHER TIME pairs Mister Pasquale with jazz great John Pizzarelli for ten tracks of completely listenable, thoroughly enjoyable, stress-free, serotonin-inducing musical delight.  The forty-one minutes of standards that these two men at the top of their game have created do not reinvent the wheel, and they do not grandstand in the way that a person might expect, given the force of nature power of the Pasquale instrument.  If you were standing in a record store (remember those), holding this album in your hand (Yes, there will be a vinyl release), and reading the track list, you might conjure big, belting recordings of songs like “This Nearly Was Mine” and “The Impossible Dream” or even, possibly, “I’ll Be Seeing You” or “Smile” but don’t do that.  Don’t make assumptions.  Steven Pasquale has left all the volume at home and taken a softer, gentler, more wistful and dreamy approach with these performances so splendidly arranged and accompanied by John Pizzarelli.  Now, don’t get disappointed - the LaMancha number gets the big finish for which you are hoping.  You’ll get your big voice fix.  But, oh, how lovely and introspective is the rest of the number.  It’s almost a lullaby, and what a dream it inspires.

Some Other Time is simple, sublime, and sensual, filled with artistic musical moments that are both thoughtful and thought provoking.  Is it careful planning that the opening track, “When I Fall In Love,” looks forward to a day when love will come, while the second track, “Young At Heart,” advises aging with grace and glory?  Is it an accident that the third cut reflects, with bitter sadness, on what might have been (“This Nearly Was Mine”) while the fourth cut (“I’ll Be Seeing You”)  tinges the sadness with a sense of gratitude?  It is more than likely that the two gentlemen (along with Jessica Molaskey, who shares producing credit with her husband, Mister Pizzarelli) designed the outing to resemble the ebb and the flow, the black and the white, the yin and the yang of the love experience.  There is not one song on the album that isn’t rooted in the act of love, in ways large and small, in manners romantic and personal.  With Pizzarelli’s tenderly precise fingering of frets and strumming of strings, and Pasquale’s surprisingly contained yet prevalent passion for storytelling, the listener is taken on a bonafide journey into deep corridors of the heart with these renditions of “Nature Boy” and (especially) the title track “Some Other Time.”  But that isn’t an essential journey.  There may be people out there who don’t overthink everything, like me, and who don’t analyze their record albums, and who aren’t looking for hidden meaning, subtext, and a story arc.  There are, most definitely, people out there who just want to listen to good music.  

Well, you’re in luck.

Some Other Time is an album you can turn on, press play, and go about your day.  Do you need something pretty to play while walking through the park or around the lake?  Here it is.  Do you seek some good music to have on in the background during your next dinner party?  This is it.  Does your relaxation time, soaking in the bath with candles aglow and a pot of tea on the hamper call out for some soothing music.? You got it.  Some Other Time is an undemanding, easygoing, friendly and palatable album that is going to land on your “Most Played” list on your phone.  I have a stack of CDs at home (still) and record albums (still) that are rarely put away - they have a special place of honor near the sound system console because they are the most likely to get dropped into the CD tray or placed on the turntable, at any given moment.  When the vinyl of Some Other Time is released, it will go into that stack, and I am certain that it will do the same for many other music lovers who will fall in love with this, the second in what I hope will be a long line of hit records for the Center Stage label.

Steven Pasquale SOME OTHER TIME - VOICE AND GUITAR WITH John Pizzarelli is currently available on all streaming platforms and will release on vinyl later this year.

Find the album on Spotify HERE or wherever you download/stream music.

Visit the Center Stage website HERE and the specific SOME OTHER TIME page HERE.

Visit the Steven Pasquale Instagram page HERE.

Visit the John Pizzarelli website HERE.