Just a couple of years after presenting the golden compositions of George Gershwin on solo piano, Denny Zeitlin is readying another solo piano program of endearing songs from another great American melody maker. With a Song In My Heart: Exploring The Music of Richard Rodgers (Sunnyside Records) sees Zeitlin applying his masterful interpretive abilities on the creations from one of Gershwin’s few peers.
For the latest in a series of great composers for whom Zeitlin devotes an album of their songs, Richard Rodgers strikes a special chord for him. He was first drawn to Rodgers music early on, as a child who saw Oklahoma both the stage play and the movie. Rodgers was one of the major architects of the Great American Songbook and several of his showtunes have long ago become jazz standards. Denny Zeitlin, however, always offer a unique insight whenever he covers even very familiar songs.
As he’s previously done with his composer series, Zeitlin gave a pristinely engineered, live performance at the intimate settings at Piedmont Piano for most of these selections; the rest are spotless studio recordings.
Zeitlin begins “Falling In Love With Love” not with the melody itself but rather some intonations that fall inside the orbit of it before settling into the main theme itself. The graceful manner that he does all this leaves the strong impression that it’s all part of the composition even though improvisation is involved.
As per usual, though, Zeitlin finds cunning ways to rework songs without disturbing the core character of them. He renders “I Didn’t Know What Time It Is” in an upbeat, 7/4 pace, while he gets “Johnny One Note” rollicking with a samba pulse. “This Nearly Was Mine” is performed at a ballad tempo 5/4 time but Zeitlin makes it flow as if the time signature doesn’t matter, only its lush melody does. “I Have Dreamed” has the same effect, even though it’s played as a slow bossa nova. “Have You Met Miss Jones” gets an exploratory treatment, as Zeitlin even briefly hints of his avant-garde side as he plays the bridge in three different keys.
Accompanying the ingenuity used in freshening these songs is the advanced facility Zeitlin possesses on piano, and he always leverages that to draw out the full potential of Rodger’s compositions. The ballad “He Was Too Good To Me” is treated with sensitivity to the lyric lines and the melancholy expressed by those lyrics. Zeitlin uses his left and right hands so capably contrapuntally for “Everything I’ve Got,” you could be fooled to think there were two pianists playing at times. Zeitlin’s straightforward take on “With A Song In My Heart” is easy to recognize, but he puts a swing underneath it that makes it snap.
The songs of Richard Rodgers are timeless tunes but that doesn’t stop Denny Zeitlin for putting forth the extra effort to make these songs like new again with modern and imaginative interpretations that take nothing away from the sweet essence of these classic strains.
With a Song In My Heart: Exploring The Music of Richard Rodgers is set for release on June 6, 2025. Pre-Order/order it from Bandcamp.
*** Denny Zeitlin CD’s and vinyl on Amazon ***
