Joe Pesci’s unheralded jazz career

When Joe Pesci is not starring in holiday classics and Martin Scorsese gangster films, he’s in the recording studio, working on his jazz career. Pesci has been making music for about 50 years. He’s 76 years old. Last month, he released a new album called “Still Singing,” and critics seem to like it.

The album is full of celebrity cameos, including Maroon 5’s Adam Levine and trumpet player Arturo Sandoval in the song “Baby Girl.”

Pesci also does a holiday tune, “Can You Fix the Way I Talk for Christmas?,” with longtime collaborator Frank Vincent. “The two of them have been physically beating each other up in film for several decades, but prior to that, they were a comedy duo … and this was a single they released in 1972 that I assume is sort of part of their comedy routine,” saysEsquire writer Dominick Nero.

Pesci combines his acting and music careers in the album called “Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You.” Nero says this album came out around the time of the 1992 comedy film “My Cousin Vinny.” “It was him in character as my cousin Vinny, doing big band and lounge music that … I describe it in my article in Esquire as a cocaine Dean Martin.”

That album features one song titled “Take Your Love and Shove It.” “It’s just so obscene. It’s not so culturally sensitive as it should be today. … It’s really a funny album,” says Nero.