Alfie Zappacosta (w/ Justin Glibbery)

Alfie Zappacosta reached most of us at volume. “Overload,” his contribution to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, sat inside a record that held No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for eighteen weeks, and he had already taken the 1984 Juno for Most Promising Male Vocalist on the strength of “Passion” and “Start Again.”

Then he turned it down. Four decades on, Zappacosta has spent far longer outside the pop machinery than he ever spent inside it: jazz, the stage, a couple of seasons as Christ in Jesus Christ Superstar and Che in Evita, and a long run of records made on his own terms out of his adopted Edmonton. Saved, nine songs released in 2021 on Alma Records, is the sound of a singer with nothing left to prove and no reason to oversell a line.

He comes to Penticton as a duo, with Justin Glibbery at the piano. Glibbery is one of ours: classically trained at UVic, a long tenure directing music at Penticton Secondary, leader of the Justin Glibbery Quintet, and a Zappacosta accompanist of many years standing. Between them there is no arrangement to hide behind and no need for one. They know the songs well enough to leave the spaces in.

A voice built for big rooms, heard at the range of a kitchen table.