’71 Fitch graduate looks to get in tune nationally

By John Benson

The Fitch grad is set to release his own compilation of soft jazz and R&B covers.

After 30-some years playing around Northeast Ohio as a dining room pianist and a member of a top 40 show band, not to mention working as a musician in Orlando, Fla., and Atlantic City, N,J., Youngstown native Denny Gallo is ready for the big time.

“The big news is I signed on with a national label and we’re going to be hitting the soft jazz and mainstream jazz markets in the U.S. and Europe with basically an EP compilation I have on iTunes and Napster,” said Gallo, a 1971 Austintown Fitch High School graduate.

“What this means to me is I hope it’s going to take me to some tier of national or international touring. I’d say after 35 years, it’s a major payoff to me just in the standpoint of having my stuff out in the world. If you get a certain amount of name recognition, you don’t have to chart in the top 40 or top 100 to tour as an artist. But beyond that, I don’t know where it’s going to take me.”

The EP, which features two versions of The Beatles’ “Got To Get You into My Life,” Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” is a compilation from two other Gallo albums. The previously recorded CDs are 2000’s “Aerial View,” which features jazz covers from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, as well as last year’s “Final Cut: Retro Mix.” The latter CD includes ’60s, ’70s and ’80s R B covers.

A regular on the hotel and jazz club circuit of Cleveland, Columbus and Pittsburgh, Gallo spent 12 years performing at dinner club Timberlanes Inn in Salem. He also became a licensed massotherapist in lean times, but music is where his heart is.

“Soft jazz covers are the best way for an artist to break into the soft jazz arena and get mainstream airplay,” said Gallo, who is going by new stage name Denny G (yeah, any similarity to Kenny G’s name is purely intentional). “So my concentration is more on the soft jazz realm, and jazz artists usually do best when they’re unknown starting off in the cover arena.”

So what is it about Gallo’s style that lends itself to playing cover music?

“I just think my playing has its own unique presence,” Gallo said. “The keyboard work is an integration of various styles, playing with different types of players over the years and listening to artists. I think I bring my own unique and exciting presence to each song’s concept. So I have my own playing style integrated into that record.

“You might say that I get a little bit more different feel for my version of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’ than the way Stevie Wonder created it.”