Jon Regen re-releases debut album, ‘From Left to Right’

New York City-based singer, songwriter and pianist Jon Regen will re-release his 1996 instrumental debut album From Left to Right on April 24, 2026 via JRM/Symphonic. Recorded at the famed Systems Two Studios in Brooklyn, the album captures a young Regen in a trio setting with drummer Sunny Jain (Red Baraat, Wild Wild East) the late bassist Earl May (Billy Taylor, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker). And while it helped launch Regen onto the global the jazz scene, the album has never been available widely or digitally until now.
 
“When I listen back to it with older ears, I hear a lot of the writer that I would become and so many of the things I learned from Kenny Barron starting to bear fruit,” Regen says. “I took a different path with my later records, focusing more on the singer/songwriter side of things - but my love of jazz is deeply apparent across the album’s seven tracks.”
 
In the era before Bandcamp, CD Baby, and the commerce-rich internet, Regen sold copies of the self-produced CD at gigs and used it as a calling card around New York. And although it didn’t connect him with the wider audience that his later recordings would, it did advance his career. The album’s opener “One for KB” landed him a spot as one of five finalists in the Great American Jazz Piano Competition, securing him press and gigs both domestically and abroad. Not long after the record’s release, Regen would be called to anchor the bands of artists like Kyle Eastwood and Little Jimmy Scott, and also take center stage as a solo singer and songwriter.
 
In a glowing review of the album for Jazz Hot in Paris, writer Jean Szlamowicz wrote, “Two years before his ‘Live at the Blue Note,’ Jon Regen already possessed a certain maturity. Elegance, clarity, sensibility and swing testify to it on ‘One for KB.’”
 
“It’s amazing how much mileage I got out of that recording, even though it was never widely-released,” Regen reflects. “I was busy writing new songs and making new records. But after my song ‘Fillmore’ was used in the thriller Cold Copy, which premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival, I listened to the album first the first time in years and I was surprised at how fresh it sounded. I wanted it to be heard.”
 
Regen had the album remastered by legendary engineer Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, and presents the finished package along with the original liner notes from his mentor Barron, who writes, “When Jon Regen first walked into my studio at Rutgers University and sat down at the piano for his very first lesson with me, I heard tremendous talent and potential, and a degree of musical maturity rare in someone fresh out of high school.” Barron continues, “I think this effort augurs well for Mr. Regen's future on the jazz scene. I can say with certainty that you will hear much more from Jon Regen.” 
 
Fittingly, the record kicks off with a piece dedicated to Barron (“One for KB”) and closes with “Mr. May,” which now stands as a tribute to the late bassist.
 
“Even in my early twenties, I was deeply grateful for the guidance that both Kenny and Earl gave me,” Regen says. “Kenny stands as the single most important musical influence in my life - a compass point for playing and living with groove and grace. Everything I do at the piano traces back to my time apprenticing him. And Earl - though many decades my senior, was a dear friend and a champion of my early gigs and compositions. We both played in guitarist Ted Dunbar’s band, and his buoyant bass lines propel the album with humor and heart. He had this wealth of experience behind him but treated us all as equals. I’ll never forget what he brought to the project. So, it’s fitting that I bookended the album with nods to both of them.”
 
Acclaimed drummer Sunny Jain rounds-out the trio with a deft sense of swing that belies his age. “Sunny was just starting off his career but it was already clear that he was going places,” Regen says. “I remember hearing him on a gig and thinking he sounded like [famed drummer] Ben Riley. I was so taken with his playing I recommended him to Kyle Eastwood, who took him on the road with us across Europe.”
 
Regen is very much looking to the future these days. He’s readying a blistering live album taken from his recent London Jazz Festival appearance due out in October, and he has a new studio album in the works.
 
But his 1996 debut holds a special place in his catalog.
 
“I hope fans of all the work I’ve done will enjoy hearing the album for the first time, and the people who recall that early part of my career have fun rediscovering these songs,” Regen continues. “Thirty years went by in the blink of an eye, but the music still sounds like me.”