John Pizzarelli plays more guitar than most jazz guitarists could dream about, and sings with the good-natured ease of a master vocalist. Frank Sinatra chose him to open the show for his final concert tour, which is a pretty good reference. He writes good songs, too, but doesn't insist on packing his albums with his own material, preferring instead to scatter them among classics such as "I Thought About You" and "When Lights are Low". There are still strong traces of his original inspiration, the young Nat King Cole, in his approach--just listen to "When I take My Sugar To Tea"--but he's very much his own man nowadays. With the superb Ray Kennedy on piano and brother Martin Pizzarelli on bass, this is a tight, bright little combo.--Dave Gelly