Pizzarelli: Honoring but not aping Sinatra.

Singer-guitarist John Pizzarelli has an easy charm, ready wit and a relaxed manner with an audience. Those things combined with his music to make his Tri-C JazzFest salute to Frank Sinatra highly entertaining, if a bit tangential to jazz. However, Pizzarelli and his combo (brother Martin Pizzarelli on bass, drummer Tony Tedesco and pianist Larry Fuller) were joined by 13 members of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra horn section who added some significant jazz heat to the 15-song program of pop-song classics associated with Ol' Blue Eyes.

Kicking off the program with a sultry "The Way You Look Tonight," Pizzarelli wended his way through a bunch of Sinatra-associated, swinging, finger-snapping tunes including "I've Got You Under My Skin," "Nice and Easy," "Ring a Ding Ding" and "I've Got the World on a String," as well as smoky, late-night barroom torchers such as "In the Wee Small Hour of the Morning" and "One More for the Road." Between tunes, Pizzarelli told stories about Sinatra (with whom he toured early in his career), the songwriters and arrangers, and the tunes' back stories. Pizzarelli mostly relegated his guitar to a supporting role with the exception of an occasional little burst of flashy fretwork on tunes like "Lady Be Good." On that tune and "Ring a Ding Ding," he also displayed his agile scatting, though it didn't dominate the tunes. One of the most effective things about the performance was how little Pizzarelli resembles Sinatra in vocal tone, delivery or personal style that automatically transformed the tunes into interpretation rather than imitation.

A powerful and elegant opening set was delivered by jazz/blues/soul singer Nnenna Freelon who paid tribute to two other towering music figures: Billie Holiday and Stevie Wonder, with tunes ranging from "Nature Boy" to "Ma Cherie Amour" and "All in Love Is Fair," and even a swinging, scatting rendition of "Three Blind Mice." She delivered all of them with her creamy voice in an airy manner that belied some of Holiday's trademark pain and weariness but meshed perfectly with Wonder's more upbeat tunes. — Jeff Niesel

Saul Williams
Grog Shop, Thursday, April 17

When Saul Williams took the stage late Thursday night, he saw a lot of faces who wouldn't have turned up at one of his gigs a few years ago. Many of them were surely there because of Williams' cozy relationship with Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor. After appearing on Year Zero and opening for Nine Inch Nails on their 2006 tour, Reznor produced Williams' 2007 album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! Reznor relentlessly hyped the album to his devoted fans, which undoubtedly led many of them to take a flyer on the pay-what-you-want download of Williams' latest. They apparently liked it enough to come see a Williams solo performance. And they came wearing their Nine Inch Nails shirts.

Williams arrived on stage clad in Native-American war paint and feathers. Along with his live band, he ran through much of Niggy, including a heaven-rattling cover of U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday." He even reached back to 2004's self-titled album for a stirring rendition of a track used in a recent Nike commercial, "List of Demands (Reparations)." The other non-traditional segment of the audience included the indie-rock fans who turned up to see Montreal's Islands run through a set list of songs from their first album, Return to the Sea, and cuts from their forthcoming release, Arm's Way. While this was Williams' and Islands' only appearance together, they feel a bit like kindred spirits. Islands' hip-hop inclinations from their debut album don't really factor in their latest album, but their blend of indie-rock and world music proved to be a good fit for Williams' audience. Although new songs like "The Arm" and "Creeper" were solid, they didn't quite measure up to older fare like "Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby" and the nine-minute epic, "Swans (Life after Death)."

Cleveland's Dragons of Zynth played a short set between Williams and Islands. Their set consisted of tracks from their debut, Coronation Thieves, and their mix of soul, jazz, and indie rock was well-received. - Jeremy Willets

Cheater Slicks
Now That's Class, Friday, April 18

Punk's been dead since who knows when, but the recent upsurge in quality 7-inch releases has dramatically revitalized the movement. Limited-pressed offerings from smalltime labels such as Richie and Hozac Records are as crude, if not weirder and more ambitious, than the original stream of no-fi outsider gunk from the 1978-82 era and are often just as sought after by collectors. Now in its third year, the Cleveland-based Horriblefest congregates many of these enigmatic 7-inch bands, from misanthropic guff (Clockcleaner, Homostupids) to glue-huffin' power pop (Cheap Time), into a drunken three-day blowout filled with the obligatory beer-tossin' noxiousness that never ceases to seem self-conscious and forced.

Undoubtedly the evening of the most fervent pee-ale spillage, the lineup for Day Two consisted mostly of goner-punk (the boring Clockcleaner and Daily Void) and a fitting headlining spot by trash-rock veterans the Cheater Slicks who, like the Ramones in the mid-'90s, are now receiving recognition in the form of mass-scaled imitation 20 years later. In its first Cleveland appearance in three years, the Cheater Slicks were noisier than usual, juicing the distortion to dizzying levels so every jam sounded like a tunnel-confined take on Link Wray groovin' to the Velvets' "Sister Ray." "Refried Dreams" and other crowd favorites were played, but the meat of the set soared with robust psychedelic guitar improvisations propelled by a cavernous tom-heavy drummer who tossed around tubs with the whiskey speedfreak abandon of Keith Moon.

Aside from the Cheater Slicks, the most memorable part of the night belonged to the unbilled Kevin Debroux (aka Pink Reason), who did a brief set of downer acoustic covers of '70s hardcore songs in the club's grimy basement. Slouched on a stool, Debroux's introspective, agonized snarling through Fear's "I Love Livin' in the City" and GG Allin's "Drink, Fight and Fuck" breathed new life into these fatalistic anthems. Despite incessant heckling in the passive-aggressive form of purposely loud inane chatter and some funny mid-lyric interruptions from the oblivious Horriblefest curators, Debroux delivered an incendiary coffeehouse-hardcore performance. - Steve Newton