Center Stage Records to Re-Release Four Albums by Jessica Molaskey

Center Stage Records will re-release four classic Jessica Molaskey albums – Pentimento, A Good Day, Make Believe, and Sitting in Limbo, will be available digitally on Friday, March 8, 2024 on all digital platforms.

“I am thrilled to re-release my recordings back out into the world. Many thanks to the lovely folks at Center Stage Records for the new home. These are recordings that I made along with the help of my husband John Pizzarelli over the last 22 years. They include some of the finest jazz musicians in the world. Many of those musicians (the virtuoso guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, Johnny Frigo on violin, and the extraordinary pianist Ray Kennedy), are sadly no longer with us but their beautiful and often swinging music lives on in these carefully crafted collections of songs. They encompass a large swath of American Standards and pop songs spanning from the Great Depression, to the stylings and writing of Peggy Lee, to Broadway musicals and beyond. All of them filtered through the idiomatic lens of Jazz. 

As Ms. Lee famously stated it's always, ‘A good day for singing a song and it's a good day for movin' along. Yes, it's a good day from mornin' till night!’” – Jessica Molaskey
“I grew up listening to Jessica, and to have a hand in getting these exceptional albums back out digitally in a privilege. I look forward to a new generation discovering these beautiful gems the way I did when they were first released,” said Center Stage Records’ A&R Director Robbie Rozelle.

Digitally remastered and re-sequenced, Pentimento is filled with songs of the 1920s and 30s that hoped to brighten the Depression. Accompanied by a wonderful band that includes her husband, John Pizzarelli, and father-in-law, Bucky Pizzarelli (both playing guitars and ukuleles), bassist brother-in-law Martin Pizzarelli, clarinetist Ken Peplowski, and violinist Johnny Frigo, this stunning debut album was originally released in 2002.
On the heels of Pentimento, Jessica Molaskey turned her sights to jazz of the 1950s and with her second album, A Good Day. Originally released in 2003, A Good Day takes off from the songs and stylings of Peggy Lee and her own guitarist husband Dave Barbour. A combination of jazz standards, show tunes, and Molaskey-Pizzarelli originals, the album was inspired out of a small stack of records neatly arranged beside the family hi-fi when Molaskey was growing up. The core group of musicians who backed her on Pentimento return here, supplemented by larger forces orchestrated by Don Sebesky and Dick Lieb.
For her third solo outing, Jessica Molaskey returned to her roots with a sublime album of show tunes called Make Believe. Joined guitarist-producer-husband John Pizzarelli (plus a full complement of strings, winds, and brass), Molaskey infuses a dozen Broadway tunes with her own jazzy style and sass. Adam Guettel joins her in a duet of his grandfather Richard Rodgers' evergreen "Glad to Be Unhappy". Surrounded by an exceptional band and critically acclaimed, Make Believe was originally released in 2004.

Jessica Molaskey's fourth studio album, Sitting in Limbo finds the singer surrounded by an extraordinary group of jazz musicians, including Grammy-nominated keyboardists Larry Goldings and Larry Fuller, sax player Harry Allen, and her celebrated husband, jazz guitarist and vocalist John Pizzarelli — to covers ranging from Jimmy Cliff to Sting to Billy Joel to Joni Mitchell, plus a few Molaskey-Pizzarelli originals. Originally released in 2006, the results are disarming, captivating, stirring and irresistible.

ABOUT Jessica Molaskey

Jessica Molaskey can currently be seen starring in The Connector, the new musical by Jason Robert Brown, Jonathan Marc Sherman and Daisy Prince at MCC. A veteran of a dozen Broadway shows including the revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park with George. She has originated roles in Parade, (directed by Hal Prince) and A Man of No Importance at Lincoln Center. Other Broadway credits include Dream, Tommy, Crazy for You, Les Misérables, City of Angels, Chess, Cats and Oklahoma! and The Most Happy Fella at City Center. Off Broadway: original cast of Songs For A New World, Dream True, Wise Guys (Stephen Sondheim, Sam Mendes) and Weird Romance. Ms. Molaskey has performed extensively in concert all over the world including nearly two decades at the famed Cafe Carlyle. She hosts a national weekly radio show called Radio Deluxe with her husband John Pizzarelli.