Pizzarelli Gets His Guitar Into the Swing of Things

It’s easy to imagine Johnny Pizzarelli in a postwar movie musical. Maybe singing and playing guitar while Jimmy Stewart pretends to be Glenn Miller, or with Steve Allen while the comedian plays the role of Benny Goodman. Pizzarelli has the feel and look of the era. His spirited singing and buoyant guitar playing, his neatly trimmed hair and dapper suit and tie are the personification of a time when music was expected to be brisk and entertaining.

Tuesday, in the opening set of a six-night run at Catalina Bar & Grill, Pizzarelli and his trio whipped through a collection of tunes resonating with references to Nat King Cole and Johnny Mercer, energized by an urgent, foot-tapping flow of rhythmic swing.

In his own utterly personal fashion, Pizzarelli’s vocals skewered the notion that the only two ways of dealing with the musical past are either to abandon it completely or simply to reproduce it in its original form. Instead, he started with the meticulously compacted approach of the Cole Trio, added flavoring from such lesser-known post-World War II ensembles as the Joe Mooney Quartet and the bands of Tiny Grimes and Louis Jordan , and framed it all within his own contemporary style.

The result was a collection of familiar, swing-oriented tunes--”Jeepers, Creepers,” “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” “Coquette” and “Meet Me at No Special Place” among them--performed with a brisk salute to the past while making a convincing case for the music’s timeless qualities.

Pizzarelli sang the songs in his light, appealing tenor, his phrasing enlivened by his skills as an instrumentalist. Rich with potential, he has the capacity to make a popular breakthrough in the manner of Diana Krall. To do so, however, he will have to bring more of the easygoing communication of his between-numbers rap to his singing, which sometimes loses its potential impact as the result of a frequent habit of performing with his eyes closed.

But there’s no denying his skills as a guitarist. In a set that equally balanced vocals and instrumentals, he moved easily from virtuosic picked lines and rapid-fire strumming to warm, multi-fingered harmonies. Countering him on piano, Ray Kennedy was a nonstop ball of energy, pouring out solos filled with perpetual motion lines. Supporting it all on bass, brother Martin Pizzarelli provided a rock-solid foundation for the trio’s taut, charged rhythms.

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* Johnny Pizzarelli Trio at Catalina Bar & Grill through Sunday. 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., (213) 466-2210. $14 cover tonight and Sunday, $17 cover Friday and Saturday, with two-drink minimum.