The following is an interview between jazz journalist Morgan Enos and guitarist, bandleader, and composer Glenn Crytzer. His new project, The Songbook Sessions, is a 250-song anthology of standards and obscurities recorded live during the pandemic with his quartet: Mike Davis (trumpet), Ricky Alexander (clarinet, saxophone), Ian Hutchison and Andrew Hall (bass), with Crytzer on guitar and vocals. Spanning the years 1920 to 1944, the series will unfold in 25 volumes, with a new track released every Friday for 250 weeks. The Songbook Sessions, Vol. 1 arrives on 5 December.
At the same time, Crytzer is developing Café Metronome, a Jazz-Age-inspired supper club and immersive venue in New York City featuring a full-time 25-piece house orchestra and chef Tyler Anderson. A link to Crytzer’s website, and to purchase the album, can be found at the end of this article.
In spring 2020, as the pandemic silenced New York stages, guitarist and bandleader Glenn Crytzer filled a spare room of his Manhattan apartment with microphones and history. With trumpeter Mike Davis, reedist Ricky Alexander, and bassist Ian Hutchison (later Andrew Hall), he turned a fan-funded livestream into a marathon of early-jazz archaeology.
Every Sunday for twenty-five weeks, the quartet performed ten songs from a single year between 1920 and 1944, recorded live for an audience watching from home. The result was an unprecedented 250-song anthology, The Songbook Sessions, a document of the Great American Songbook as both living tradition and performance laboratory.
Five years later, Crytzer is releasing that catalogue in real time: twenty-five digital volumes, one for each year, with a new track every Friday for 250 weeks. Volume 1 lands on 5 December 2025, followed by Volume 2 a week later.
Each instalment restores the rhythmic vitality and period-specific “performance practice” Crytzer has spent two decades studying, from the close-miked intimacy of a 1920s crooner to the sweeping swing of 1940s dance halls. Drawing on RCA’s 1940 engineering manuals and vintage recording methods, he and his band recreated the sonic “depth of field” that defined early studio sessions. The result functions equally as scholarship, craft, and love letter to a nearly lost language of American music.
But The Songbook Sessions is only half of Crytzer’s vision. Parallel to the release, he is developing Café Metronome, an ambitious Jazz-Age-inspired supper club and immersive venue that will house a full-time, 25-piece professional orchestra. Partnering with award-winning chef Tyler Anderson, a Tony-winning producer, an Emmy-nominated designer, and a top Broadway press team, Crytzer envisions a space where live swing, fine dining, and period design intersect – “a place,” he says, “that could outlive me.” Café Metronome will operate as a hybrid of a jazz club, a Broadway show, and a fine-dining restaurant: a permanent home for vintage jazz that aims to elevate the entire scene rather than compete with existing venues.
For Crytzer, who already leads one of the city’s most respected vintage ensembles (the Glenn Crytzer Orchestra, heard in Christopher Robin, Agent Carter, and Riverdale), both projects pose the same challenge: how to make early jazz sustainable in the modern world?
Read on for the full interview.
UK Jazz News: I’ve always admired musicians who restore early jazz and make it feel alive again. Where do you situate yourself in that world?
GC: My niche is what you’d call historical performance practice, but it also includes writing. In the classical world, Bach went away, came back pedagogically, and then people realised there’s a practice for how it should actually be played. I think that’s where we’re at with jazz right now; people are just starting to get hip to the idea that there’s a performance practice to this music. My focus is both the performance and the writing practice of that period, and also the recording practice. It’s all tied together.
When you listen to my big-band stuff, we don’t individually mic everything. I firmly believe the way mics were used at that time is fascinating, because in this period it’s sort of the Wild West, and it actually affects the music. Essentially, if you have a mic that’s close to something and further away from something else, you’re creating this depth of field in recording. You don’t get that when you mic every instrument individually; everything’s just right in your face. But that depth of field – a close-up clarinet with everything else a little further away – that’s really fascinating to me. I’m a nerd on the recording side of this. I’m a nerd on the performing and the writing side of it.
UKJN: Almost like mixing a cocktail through the laws of physics – do I want it a little more boozy, or a little more citrus?
GC: Yeah, exactly. I actually have a copy of RCA’s 1940 manual they used to train their studio engineers – proper mic distances, best practices, all that. When you look at my catalogue across the years, I’ve got better and better at it. By the time we did our big Christmas album in 2019, we got really close. Every time, we get a little better as I discover new things.
UKJN: Let’s talk about The Songbook Sessions – Volume 1 covers 1920, right? For readers who can’t tell 1915 from 1925, what defines 1920?
GC: We’re coming out of ragtime, and people are starting to discover jazz. The original Dixieland Jazz Band had already made noise in the late teens, but 1920 is when it started to spread – the war’s over, there’s a little depression, but things are starting to boom. Broadcasting explodes because during World War I, all the new tech got locked down by the military. Suddenly, it’s back in commercial hands. It’s an interesting moment, the hinge between ragtime and jazz, when the vocabulary’s still forming.
Are you going to hear a huge difference between the songs of 1920 and 1921? Probably not. But as you move through the 25 volumes, you’ll hear the writing change over time. A Johnny Mercer tune from the ’40s doesn’t sound like a Con Conrad tune from 1920 – but it’s a slow, fascinating progression.
UKJN: You keep using the term ‘performance practice’, which I love. What does that mean in jazz terms?
GC: In classical music it’s a common term, but in jazz we don’t use it much, and I’m trying to bring it in. It’s about how you perform to fit a style period: articulation, dynamics, phrasing, feel. The performance practice of Mozart is different from Brahms; same with a Harlem band in ’32 versus a downtown radio orchestra in ’32. Even the skip-beat feel varies band to band. So ‘performance practice; is the umbrella term – and then you zoom in by era, geography, and ensemble type.
UKJN: How did you choose the material for Volume 1?
GC: A little of things I love, and things that define the era. When we play quartet gigs around New York, we show up and go, “What do you guys want to play tonight?” My tune list is about a thousand songs; we recorded 250 of them. Most were already in our repertoire, but we learned a few from scratch. We do the classics – ‘Singin’ the Blues’, stuff like that – but also deep cuts. I don’t think that many people play ‘Lena from Palesteena’, but it’s a cool little tune.
UKJN: Any songwriters you’d highlight from that year?
GC: Half the record is Con Conrad and J. Russell Robinson. They were slamming in 1920, just writing hit after hit. There’s Irving Berlin too – everybody loves Berlin, and he’s all over this series. I don’t know if I have favourite composers so much as songs that speak to me, or lyrics that grab me. You start to see lyrics get more sophisticated as microphones come in. When singers didn’t have to shout over a band, songs could be delivered more intimately.
UKJN: Tell me about the band itself.
GC: Mike Davis, Ricky Alexander, and Ian Hutchison started it with me. About five volumes in, Ian had to step out and Andrew Hall took over on bass. We all play together a ton, so it’s second nature. That’s huge when you’re recording live, no retakes. Mike’s such a clear trumpet player; when he leads an ending, I always know where he’s going. I can basically read his mind.
UKJN: How far ahead are you?
GC: Everything’s recorded. We sent early versions to our subscribers, but now I’m remixing and remastering before each volume goes out. Doing 25 of these taught me a ton about mixing. I want to put out the best product possible.
UKJN: Let’s pivot to Café Metronome. You said it’s unlike any jazz club out there.
GC: It’s not like any jazz club you’ve ever been to. It’s a completely different model. Most clubs book acts. Broadway shows run the same show every night. We’re the hybrid: immersive show, jazz club, and fine-dining restaurant. My partner’s a celeb chef, Tyler Anderson – one of his Connecticut restaurants made the New York Times 2023 list of 50 best in America. So right away, the food’s going to be par excellence.
We’ll have a 25-piece house orchestra that plays there every night, full-time salaried musicians. Outside of military bands, nobody does that. The same core orchestra performs with guest artists, dancers, Broadway folks, pop crossovers – the show changes weekly, but the band is constant. It’s a consistent, marketable identity, but always new. And I’m very much a rising-tide guy. This isn’t about competing with other jazz clubs; it’s about creating more business for everyone. People will come in, fall in love with an artist, and then go see them elsewhere.
UKJN: What inspired this hybrid model?
GC: I sat down and said, “There needs to be a home for this kind of music that I love, and what’s the way we can do it that makes it so successful it outlives me?” A ballroom was too exclusive; a nonprofit concert hall too narrow. I wanted something that includes all the music of the period and the spirit of the period. A supper club with a big floor show hits all those elements: the dance, the listening, the immersive experience.
UKJN: Why is this music and experience worth preserving for the average listener?
GC: First of all, this is great music. I shouldn’t have to say that, but sometimes I do in the jazz world. During Covid we’d play in Central Park – an hour set, quartet setup – and people would come up to us, practically in tears, saying, “This is why I live in New York.” It’s the roots of American pop, the roots of jazz, the roots of American musical theatre – the intersection of all of it. It’s tuneful, virtuosic, and accessible.
And people now are hungry for experience. After Covid, searches for ‘immersive restaurants’ tripled. Folks don’t want to just watch; they want to be involved. That’s why shows like Sleep No More or Queen of the Night were hits. We’re giving people that sense of stepping into another world, like, Oh wow, I’m in a Fred-and-Ginger movie.
UKJN: So where are you in the process of bringing CM to life?
GC: In the Spring we were very close to “full steam ahead.” We had a big loan lined up and equity circled for most of the rest, and then the lender went under – so we had to step back. But, the right people will come along to capitalise the venue.
UKJN: And you’re confident you’ll find them?
GC: Oh yeah. The amount of money that gets poured into things that don’t make any sense in this city is astounding. Something that does make sense – with a good business model that actually makes money for investors while also making a substantial contribution to the arts, dining, and nightlife – is compelling once the right person sees it. The funny part is, food-and-beverage people say, “We don’t know entertainment,” and entertainment people say, “We don’t know food and beverage,” so they feel like it’s outside their wheelhouse because we’ll actually be one of the only places to do both at a very high level. We just need the folks who can see both sides.
UKJN: What’s the best way for people to follow The Songbook Sessions?
GC: Keep tuning in! New songs drop every Friday. You can pre-save them on Spotify or Apple Music so they show up automatically. The idea is: it’s Friday morning, it’s been a long week, and here’s something to give you a little lift. That’s the spirit of the livestreams – a weekly moment of joy.
After those shows we’d all hang out on Zoom, talk about history. DeWitt Fleming Jr. came on to talk about the history of tap. Colleen Darnell, who’s one of the best-dressed vintage folks you’ll ever meet and a professor of Egyptology, talked about Egyptian motifs in 1920s design. It was fun, nerdy history people like me hanging out, brightening a dark time.
UKJN: And on the business side?
GC: We’ve got a great team. We’re plowing forward and figuring out how to get the doors open. There’s one last piece of the puzzle left, and that’s just the capital.
One Response
This interview is fantastic! Glenn Crytzer is a true nerd, which I love – especially his physics-of-mixing analogy. And speaking of mixing, his band sounds incredible, playing second nature without retakes is impressive. The Songbook Sessions are brilliant, capturing that performance practice – essential for jazz, just like Bach! Plus, Café Metronome sounds like the perfect modern hub for this music, blending immersive shows and fine dining, though finding investors who get both sides might be the real wild west challenge! All this talk of depth of field and close-up clarinets has me wanting to dive into the archives. Highly recommend tuning in!