John

The great American songbook is too rarely approached with the unique blend of honesty, inventiveness, and reverence that John Pagano accords it on his Pure Imagination. From conception to execution, Pure Imagination is a refreshing, even daring journey, encompassing twelve timeless, classic songs – setting well-known standards alongside more unexpected, revealing selections. Pagano is quick to note that Pure Imagination was approached as a genuine creative release. “I wasn’t trying to follow guidelines,” he explains. “For years I’ve dealt with record companies telling me what to do. This CD is the sound of me making the decisions myself, experiencing the freedom of being able to be creative without someone else calling the shots.”
Pagano’s unbridled spirit is immediately apparent from the very outset of Pure Imagination, as he caresses the opening verse of Cole Porter’s “Let’s Fall In Love” with tender anticipation before surging brass herald the chorus’s arrival and Pagano’s soulful tenor glides in with equal parts assurance, gusto, and playfulness. Throughout, Pagano wisely sets aside ring-a-ding swing-era vocal clichés and falls back on his own razor-sharp instincts. Recording in a classic old-school style – with Pagano singing live in the studio with the band and orchestra – brought an element of risk to the proceedings which only elevated the intensity of his performances. “You never know what you’ll hear when you step up to the mic in the studio,” he reflects. “Maybe a certain string part will bend your ear. I’d hear the violas do something and my heart would react, leading me to resolve a phrase just a little bit differently, or take a line up or down in a way I haven’t tried before. I just let myself follow those feelings.”
Reacting so quickly and yet so gracefully to one’s surroundings requires a formidable musical intelligence, and Pagano is quick to credit the eleven years (and counting) that he has spent as Burt Bacharach’s lead singer – a role that has put him in front of symphony orchestras around the world. Pagano has also served as vocalist for Bacharach’s song demos, exposing him to new, often challenging material. “I wasn’t close to the singer I am now before I met him,” Pagano says with noticeable awe and respect. “I’ve learned so much from Burt...when I was younger, I thought it was all about going for it and singing as loud as you can to get people to react. But I remember him saying to me, ‘You can make someone cry with the softest note.’ He taught me to translate that sensitivity to the smallest gestures.” Three of Bacharach’s songs are featured on Pure Imagination, with arrangements, piano, and production on two of them provided by the master himself.
Part of the genius of Pure Imagination is Pagano’s willingness to extend the boundary of what constitutes a standard – resulting in a track list that blends songs associated with Sinatra, Martin, Bennett, and Baker with Bacharach and Anthony Newley’s title track, best remembered from the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. “I thought that I might get some flack for that song, but I’ve always wanted to record it – and I know there are people out there who remember it the way that I do, as something special from another time in their lives...”
Pagano’s own childhood was what first instilled this music in him, growing up in an Italian family in Providence, Rhode Island. “I’ve always had the feel for it,” he says. “My father woke us up every morning to go to school with Sinatra!” While his brother, now a professional drummer (who plays on several tracks on Pure Imagination), brought the sounds of jazz into the household, his sister introduced him to R&B renaissance happening around him in the seventies and eighties -- thus Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, and Donnie Hathaway emerged as strong early influences on Pagano. Beginning his career as an R&B vocalist, he was signed to MCA Records and began to make a mark as a solo artist and behind the scenes as a producer, songwriter, and guitarist before signing on with Bacharach.
It was through his studio work that Pagano first began the sessions that resulted in Pure Imagination. “A publisher hired me,” he remembers, “to sing five Sinatra songs – but they asked me to do it in my own style and not to mimic Frank. It was a big gig – full orchestra and everything – and I took it very seriously. I went out and researched every version of these songs I could find.” When the big day came, he got up to the mic with the full band and strings behind him. “I was very nervous...a lot of these musicians and string players were around during the heyday of Sinatra, but when it went down...I can only compare it to dancing – it would be like dancing with Fred Astaire. We went with the first take of the first song, and I fell in love with the process.
“Afterwards some of the older gentlemen came up to me and said ‘I really appreciate that you sang them like you, and not like Frank. We already have Frank!’” Pagano played the recordings of those five tracks for friends and fellow musicians, who encouraged him to record more in the same style. “So,” he says, “I took my life savings and did everything up to the quality of those first five songs...I figured it was time to invest in myself, and doing so with a timeless kind of music that wouldn’t sound dated in the years to come.” That investment included several sessions in the legendary Capitol Studio A, where Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and countless other greats cut some of their finest and most beloved recordings.
The result is Pure Imagination, an affecting project that draws from John Pagano’s rich experiences: updating the soundtrack of his upbringing with his personal, R&B-flavored phrasing and the elegant sophistication imparted to him by Burt Bacharach. “I’m doing these songs,” Pagano concludes, “in a way that suits my voice. I try to do what the arrangements and the songs tell me to – I learned that from Burt. When it came time to record, I closed my eyes, I listened, and I reacted. It’s like being a boxer – you can train all you want in the gym, but it’s totally different when you step into the ring.”