If you enjoy this concert, blame it on the bossa nova.

Byline: Carolyn Lamberson The Register-Guard

Pop in the latest CD from John Pizzarelli, "Bossa Nova," and by the second track you just might wonder: "Huh. I wonder if he does `The Girl From Ipanema'?'

Then Track 3 begins. It's "The Girl From Ipanema." By that point, your body's swaying along to the music and you can easily imagine yourself drinking a frothy cocktail.

Pizzarelli, a jazz guitarist known for his smooth vocal style, turns his attention to the bossa nova music of Brazil. But not all the songs were written as bossa nova tunes.

Track 4 is James Taylor's "Your Smiling Face,' done bossa nova style. You gotta hear it to believe it.

And you just may get a chance to hear it for yourself when Pizzarelli performs at the Shedd on Wednesday as part of the Oregon Festival of American Music's Now Hear This series.

The bossa nova became a brief American craze in the early 1960s after artists such as Stan Getz and Gerry Mulligan started incorporating the sound in their music. An offshoot of the samba, it was created in Brazil by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto.

Pizzarelli discovered the bossa nova much later, as he relates in the liner notes to "Bossa Nova': Late on a summer night in 1981, he was driving his father, famed jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, home from gig and listening to the car radio.

"On came a version of `Besame Mucho' that changed my life. It was Joao Gilberto with a Claus Ogerman arrangement from an album called `Amoroso.' As the song played on, ... my father kept turning up the volume and remarking out loud with every chord change: `Get that record tomorrow.' ...

`That record is a gift to the world.'

With a father like Bucky Pizzarelli, it seems only natural that young John would turn to jazz. He started playing guitar at age 6 and was playing professionally by his late teens. For several years, he and his dad recorded music together for Stash Records.

He first stepped out on his own in 1983 when he recorded "I'm Hip - Please Don't Tell My Father." While he's recorded everything from solo guitar to big band, most of his work is with a drumless trio - like Nat King Cole's group - that features his brother Martin on bass and Ray Kennedy on piano.

Pizzarelli has been known to compose a song or two, but his main emphasis is on reinterpreting the great American songbook.

He co-starred in the 1997 Broadway production "Dream," which centered on the music of Johnny Mercer. Last fall, he fronted a 40-piece orchestra at New York's Radio City Music Hall in a live production of "Sinatra: His Voice, His World, His Way."

He's even tapped into the great British songbook, in a sense. In 1998, he recorded "John Pizzarelli Meets the Beatles."

Joining the John Pizzarelli Trio on stage at the Shedd will be percussionist Tony Tedesco. The backing vocals will be handled by Daniel Jobim, grandson of bossa nova creator Antonio Jobim.

And it's a pretty good guess that "The Girl From Ipanema" will be there as well.

CONCERT PREVIEW

John Pizzarelli

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: The Shedd, 285 E. Broadway

Tickets: $40, $32, $28 and $24, 687-6526 or [phone]

CAPTION(S):

John Pizzarelli will team with vocalist Daniel Jobim, a member of the first family of bossa nova, in a finger-snapping, hip-swaying concert Wednesday at the Shedd.