David Frishberg’s Jazzy Satire Makes Its S.D. Debut

When David Frishberg sings, people smile. They can’t help it. He’s a wry social commentator who delivers his songs in a jaunty, serviceable voice that perfectly suits his Woody Allen-ish point of view.

But smiles fade to slack-jawed wonder when Frishberg plays piano. He is a polished instrumentalist whose skills have landed him in the studio with a pantheon of jazz greats. It’s this balance between satire and serious musicianship that makes Frishberg so appealing.

Friday and Saturday, he makes his first appearances in San Diego at the Horton Grand Hotel downtown, where he’ll fine-tune a batch of new material for a live recording session Sunday at the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles.

Frishberg, 59, is close in spirit to Mose Allison, another talented pianist-vocalist with an oddly canted view of the world, although Frishberg doesn’t buy the comparison. Like Allison, Frishberg’s viewpoint comes across both in his vocal delivery and his teetering, slightly off-kilter piano improvisations.

“He’s a much better singer than I am,” protests Frishberg, who cites Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim as songwriting influences. “I think Mose has more of a blues influence, while I’m much more influenced by theatrical musicals.”

Frishberg is a solid enough pianist that he has recorded with Al Jarreau, Mel Torme and Cleo Laine, but it was when he began singing his own songs a few years back that his career as a solo pianist-singer took off.

“It had never occurred to me that I could sing my own stuff, but no one else was singing it, and I figured I better start doing it or no one was going to hear it,” Frishberg said. “When I started recording for Concord in the late ‘70s, (Concord President) Carl Jefferson encouraged me to sing in front of people. He invited me to open for Bing Crosby at the Concord Pavilion in 1978, and that was my first public singing job.”

Frishberg eventually recorded two albums for Concord (which also re-issued two earlier albums) that included several of his trademark songs, including “My Attorney Bernie,” “I’m Hip” (a collaboration with Bob Dorough) and “Van Lingle Mungo.”

His flair for bouncy melodies and catchy lyrics has gained him work in many fields, including a San Diego angle. He wrote and sang several jingles for Horton Plaza that aired during the mid-1980s. With slight changes to its lyrics, one of these became the song “Let’s Eat Home,” which pokes fun at globe-trotting, “Rich & Famous” lifestyles and is included on his 1990 album named for the song.

During the Winter Olympics this year, a CBS producer commissioned Frishberg to write a song for a video that chronicled four years of world events between Olympics.

“The tricky part was to frame it in a plausible way so there’d be some reason for making such a list,” said Frishberg, who came up with the concept “Report from Planet Earth” to tie the song together. “I went to the library and looked up lists of events in almanacs to refresh my own memory. I often do research for songs, especially if they’re assignments.”

For his San Diego assignment, he spent a day at Horton Plaza. “It’s not your ordinary B-flat shopping mall,” he said with typical comic understatement.

Frishberg taught himself piano by listening to jazz, blues and boogie woogie in his hometown of St. Paul, Minn. He spent the ‘60s in New York City and the ‘70s and early ‘80s in Los Angeles before moving to Portland, Ore., in 1986 because he wanted a good place to raise his children.

In his adopted hometown, Frishberg has standing Wednesday and Thursday engagements--strictly as a pianist--at the Heathman, a downtown hotel. His newest recording, which also emphasizes piano over vocals, is titled “Where You At?” and was released on the French label Bloomdido last year.

Two of Frishberg’s new compositions, to be unveiled for San Diegans this weekend, are “My Country Used to Be” and “Quality Time.” He didn’t elaborate on the contents but said the titles give good indications.

Friday’s and Saturday’s performances start at 8:30 p.m.

It was a chance encounter with a microphone that hooked KSDS-FM (88.3) interviewer Gerald Cirrincione on radio. Cirrincione, who hosts a noon-to-3 p.m. show every Friday on KSDS, first experienced live radio when he won a KPBS-FM (89.5) contest by writing a news story, Garrison Keillor style, three years ago.

He then read his winning entry on KPBS.

“I got such a surge of adrenaline that I wanted to do more,” he said. “I took classes at City (San Diego City College), and that led to a shift at KSDS.”

Cirrincione’s interest in jazz was piqued by KSDS program director Tony Sisti’s radio programming and production class. When Cirrincione, whose resume ranges from Peace Corps volunteer to math teacher to software programmer, began hosting his show a year ago, he played music and did an occasional interview. Soon, however, he was doing one interview per week, then two, then three. To date, he has interviewed a “Who’s Who” of jazz, including Pharoah Sanders, Kenny Burrell, Freddie Hubbard and Art Farmer.

Cirrincione, 45 and between “real” jobs, hopes, eventually to make a career of radio. On Friday, he’ll interview trumpeter Clark Terry and guitarist John Scofield. He is also hoping to talk with trumpeter Tom Harrell, who plays the Jazz Note in Pacific Beach this weekend.

RIFF: When guitarist Larry Carlton plays the Del Mar Fair on June 17, his band will feature Kirk Whalum on sax, instead of San Diegan Hollis Gentry, who had been in Carlton’s road band. Gentry will spend a portion of his summer writing new music, with the help of former San Diegan Marcel East, for Gentry’s next recording. He’s also playing straight-ahead jazz on Monday nights at Croce’s downtown through June.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

HOT TRUMPETER HARRELL PLAYS THE JAZZ NOTE

One of the drawbacks of not living in a major jazz city is that, when big names come to town, they seldom bring their own bands. The economics of small clubs don’t afford this luxury, so top players hop from town to town, hitching up with local musicians in each area. When it comes to original material, it is difficult to match the rapport a player has with his or her own group.

Trumpeter Tom Harrell’s new release, “Passages,” is his first with his hot new band, which includes saxophonist Joe Lovano and pianist Danilo Perez. Fronted by Harrell and Lovano’s intertwining horns, this sextet produces driving, satisfying straight-ahead jazz in the spirit of some of the classic small groups of the 1950s and 1960s.

Harrell, unfortunately, will be without these players at the Jazz Note in Pacific Beach this weekend, but he will still play much of the fine original music from “Passages.” And his San Diego-based band mates stand as good a chance as any of pulling it off with aplomb. Harrell will be backed by the local “Cadillac rhythm section” of pianist Mike Wofford, bassist Bob Magnusson and drummer Jim Plank, plus tenor saxman Steve Feierabend.

Shows are at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Sunday. There’s a $10 cover.