Phil Lentz Presents…: The Long Way From a College Song to a First Album
After Newsrooms and Speechwriting, a New York Jazz Pianist Records Songs Written Since His Teens
Phil Lentz wrote Where Are All the People while he was at college. The song then waited through a long career in political reporting, press work and speechwriting. It is now the only vocal track on Phil Lentz Presents…, the eleven-track jazz and pop album he released on 28 September 2022.
Phil Lentz’s music is in the playlist below, and his full coverage history sits on his artist profile. Phil Lentz Presents… came to NewMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news sites. Press play, then read on.
From Political Newsrooms and Two Novels to the First Album Phil Lentz Presents
Music came first for Lentz, at least in time. He started piano lessons at the age of eight. As he told MuzicNotez in a 2023 interview, he began writing music not long after. However, his working life went another way. He became an award-winning political reporter. His papers included the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Bulletin, the Newark Star-Ledger and Crain’s New York Business. In 1992 he was press secretary to Paul Tsongas during his run for president. He then ran public affairs at New York University, and later he directed speechwriting in the New York governor’s office. He also published two novels, The Corcoran Affair in 2004 and Murder at City Hall in 2013.
The piano never left. Lentz kept playing keyboards in bands and workshops across New York City. The venues included The Bitter End, The Iridium, The Cutting Room, Shrine and Silvana’s. Meanwhile, the songs kept accumulating; some were finished, and others stayed as fragments for years. Then he and the guitarist and producer Dennis Harte picked out the strongest of them. They took the songs to a band with Kevin Gaffney on drums and Wolfgang Lugomarsini on bass. Red Heller is credited on three tracks. From the first rehearsals to a finished CD on streaming services took almost a year.
What changed for Lentz was less the music than who could hear it. He said that many friends had not known he was a composer at all. He also said the album went on to find listeners around the world. His earlier careers were spent writing news copy and other people’s speeches. This was the first time his own compositions went out under his own name.
Eleven Tracks, One College Song With Lyrics and a Schumann Mistake Turned Into Soft Rock
Phil Lentz Presents… runs eleven tracks and just under half an hour. Its titles sketch the range, from Bluesy and That Far Away Look to Gospel, Icy Cool and Tap Your Toes. The writing moves between jazz, pop, folk, blues, gospel and soft rock. Where Are All the People is the college song. At four minutes and 25 seconds, it is also the longest piece on the record. By contrast, Lullaby, the closer, is credited to Lentz alone and lasts just over a minute.
Several songs carry a story about how they were made. Lentz writes by trying chord combinations at the piano until one catches his ear. Some of those ideas wait a long time. For example, Tap Your Toes began as a tune he could not finish; he put it aside and returned to it years later. Schumann’s Theme came from a mistake. He was practising the slower second section of Robert Schumann’s piano piece Soaring when he played something wrong. He liked the sound of it and built a soft rock song on it.
Harte learned music on the streets of Greenwich Village as a teenager. Later he worked as a studio engineer, session player and touring guitarist. He helped turn those tunes into finished arrangements, and Lentz has been clear that he regards the results as shared work.
What the Album Answers Four Years On, for Fans of Bruce Hornsby and Burt Bacharach
Listeners who know the songwriters Lentz names as influences will find their way in quickly. Fans of Bruce Hornsby will recognise a pianist bringing jazz harmony into songs built for a wide audience. Lentz has said he greatly admires Hornsby, and Hornsby’s 1986 hit The Way It Is put a jazz-inflected piano part at the heart of a pop single. Similarly, fans of Burt Bacharach will hear the same pull toward an unexpected chord. Lentz has said some of his songs carry Bacharach’s flavour. Bacharach’s songs for Dionne Warwick set memorable pop melodies over unusual chord changes and shifting metres.
So what does the album answer, four years after its release? Mostly a question about patience. A record of songs written across a lifetime could easily have sounded like an archive. Instead, these pieces are short, melodic and played by a band that keeps them light on their feet. It opened a three-album series. It also remains the clearest place to start, because it is where his songwriting first went on record.
NewMusic.News curator team: “The pleasure of Phil Lentz Presents… is how unhurried it is. Eight of its eleven pieces finish inside three minutes. They state the melody on keys and guitar, then leave, which suits songs shaped in New York club workshops.”
Where to Hear Phil Lentz Presents and Follow the New York Pianist
It suits jazz listeners who want the melody first. It also suits pop fans curious about instrumental music, and it rewards a second listen. Play it in the player at the top of this page. To hear what came next, his later albums are on Spotify and Bandcamp.
Follow Phil Lentz on the Spotify artist profile, Apple Music, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X. His music, books and photography all live on his official website.
