Phil Lentz Assembles Phil Lentz Presents... From Songs Honed in Workshop Bands at the Bitter End
An American Keyboard Player Takes Eleven Jazz, Folk and Rock Originals off the Workshop Stage
Phil Lentz Presents… is put together like a club band’s set: eleven short originals for keyboards, guitar, bass and drums. Phil Lentz, a composer and keyboard player based in New York City, United States, honed them in band workshops on club stages such as The Bitter End. The album came out on 28 September 2022, and Lentz recorded it with Dennis Harte, Wolfgang Lugomarsini, Kevin Gaffney and Red Heller.
Bluesy by Phil Lentz sits in our World, Roots, Jazz, Lounge, Ambient playlist below, and the full run of coverage is on Phil Lentz’s artist profile. Phil Lentz Presents… came to this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Press play on the playlist, then read on for the club scene behind the album.
Rehearsal Cycles, Club Stages and the Workshop Scene Behind Phil Lentz Presents…
Those workshop bands belong to a scene that rarely goes near a chart. Their players are adults who sign up for a band and rehearse with a professional director. Then they play a real club. Music Makers is one of the engines of that scene. Bob Elliott started it in 1998 as a rehearsal space for the city’s musicians, and back then it was called The Studio.
Its Join-A-Band workshops still follow a simple plan. First, an instructor breaks each song into its parts: the start and the ending, the solos, the groove, the transitions. Then, at the end of the cycle, the band plays one of the best-known rooms in town. The Bitter End on Bleecker Street has been open since 1961. The Iridium, on Broadway at 51st Street, is another of its stages.
That is the wave this album comes out of. The aim is the gig, not a record deal. So the reward is the night itself, in a famous room, with a set the players built together.
Where Phil Lentz Fits in the Workshop Circuit
Lentz fits that wave closely, because music ran alongside another career. Lentz reported on politics for papers such as the Chicago Tribune, then moved into speechwriting and public affairs. There are two political thrillers on the shelf as well. The bands came later, a second life for a musician who started lessons at the age of eight.
For about a decade, Lentz has played keyboards in Music Makers bands. Those bands and other workshops have taken Lentz to The Iridium, The Cutting Room, Shrine and Silvana’s, as well as Bleecker Street. Lentz rates one Music Makers jazz show there above the rest, because the band locked in that night.
The album carried that habit into the studio. Lentz and Harte chose the strongest songs from a lifetime of writing. Then the band went from its first rehearsals to a finished CD in almost a year. Harte also brought the older side of the scene. Harte learned music on the streets of Greenwich Village as a teenager. Later came studio work as an engineer and session player, and tours as a guitarist.
Phil Lentz, credited as Philip Lentz, wrote all eleven pieces and arranged them with Harte. Harte also produced the album and plays guitar on it. Heller plays alto sax, Lugomarsini bass and Gaffney drums. The band recorded at Studio Mozart in Little Falls and Kaleidoscope Sound in Union City, both in New Jersey.
Eleven Short Tunes Written at the Keyboard
The songs themselves start with chords. Lentz tries combinations at the keyboard until one sticks, and some fragments wait years for an ending. Lentz wrote the first idea for Tap Your Toes years ago and put it aside. Later, the idea came back and became a finished tune. Schumann’s Theme has a stranger origin. It grew from a slip Lentz made while practising the slow second part of Robert Schumann’s Soaring. Lentz liked how the mistake sounded and turned it into a soft rock tune.
The running order reads like a set list too. Two titles name a style, Bluesy and Gospel, while Summer of ’21 names a season. Most tracks run between two and three and a half minutes, so the whole album lasts under half an hour. Heller joins on three of the eleven, which leaves a four-piece band for most of the record. Finally, Lentz plays the closing Lullaby alone, in just over a minute.
Les Paul, Norah Jones and the Jazz-Pop Neighbours of Phil Lentz Presents…
The rooms on that circuit have carried the line between jazz and pop before. Les Paul played Monday nights at the Iridium from 1996 until his death in 2009. In 1951, Les Paul and Mary Ford took the jazz standard How High the Moon to number one in America. Lentz works the same border from the other side, with jazz tunes that end at pop length.
Norah Jones is a closer neighbour. Norah Jones moved to New York in 1999 and worked the jazz clubs and piano bars of Greenwich Village. Then Come Away With Me came out on Blue Note in February 2002. The album folded jazz into country, blues, folk and pop. The club on Bleecker Street counts Norah Jones among its past performers. Lentz’s mix of jazz, folk and rock shares that refusal to keep jazz in one room.
Who Phil Lentz Presents… Is For
That makes Phil Lentz Presents… a natural pick for jazz and pop fans looking for new artists. That holds in the United States and beyond. It also suits listeners who came to jazz through crossover records like Come Away With Me. It will make sense, too, to players who know the workshop circuit from the inside.
Start with Bluesy and play the album in order, the way a club band runs its set, through to Lullaby.
From the TopMusic.News curator team: “Bluesy earned its spot in our jazz and roots playlist because all five players are on it. A short, smoky tune like that sits well between the lounge and roots records, and it gives a newcomer the whole band in under three minutes.”
Stream Phil Lentz Presents… and Follow Phil Lentz on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube
Stream Phil Lentz Presents… on Apple Music, and find more of the music on Spotify and Bandcamp. Then follow Phil Lentz on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X.
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