The Great American Songbook spans over 40 years of popular songs, composers and performers. This
music encompasses everything written from the early days of Tin Pan Alley, which in the 1920s was
the base of all New York City music publishers and songwriters. This also includes the musical scores
from Broadway and all of the classic songs composed for the motion picture musicals created in Holly-
wood. Michael Feinstein has an extensive and thorough knowledge of all of this material. Yes, he does.
Not only that, he is a sensational singer with exceptional skills as a pianist and musician. Ever since
Feinstein was a child, he was drawn to this music. His passion for this music and its history opened a ca-
reer path that led to his present-day accomplishments. He is the owner of Feinstein’s at the Regency in
New York, a noted concert performer/recording artist and a premier historian on the Great American
Songbook. Feinstein will perform two nights of songs from one of the greatest American composers
of all time, Cole Porter, with the incredible composer and conductor Marvin Hamlisch on Friday, May 1
and Saturday, May 2 in the Copley Symphony Hall. It is a great honor to present this interview with the
one and only Michael Feinstein.
Rage: Before we start, congratulations on five months of being legally married! (Feinstein tied the knot with his
longtime partner Terrence Flannery on October 17, 2008).
Michael Feinstein: Thank you, may it continue forever.
Rage: Your latest CD, The Sinatra Project is excellent. The attention to detail on the arrangements is really innova-
tive.
MF: Thank you. It took a while to arrive at it but I’m glad that I got there.
Rage: I can understand not wanting to do just another Sinatra tribute album.
MF: Exactly. I’ve heard many tribute albums that were the same stuff over and over again. I wanted to
avoid that.
Rage: This attention to detail… where does that stem from?
MF: The songs that I sing are the songs that I’ve grown up with. So, they feel very organic to me. My
interpretations come from a place within. In that, I don’t intellectualize what I do but I simply feel. I go
mainly with the feeling of the lyric and the music to evoke a style and the tempo that I want to present
with a particular piece.
The Sinatra Project was a very fine balancing line because I did want to evoke Frank Sinatra but I didn’t
want to copy him. So, I simply went back to the songs themselves and tried to express what each song
wanted to say. Then, let my imagination run wild or run free in order to evolve an arrangement. Then,
it was realized by Bill Elliott who did the actual orchestrations. It is more of an instinctive thing than
anything else. Even though, I am meticulous, it has to come from the feel because otherwise it will be
clinical.
Michael Feinstein
Rage: Yes and the fact that all those tracks were cut live in the studio…
MF: Yes and in two days.
Rage: That’s another genius stroke as it makes the sound so rich and so different. I read a quote from you about your
childhood and being secretive about what you listened to. I can relate to that as I used to hide my MGM soundtracks
like The Pirate, Hit the Deck and In the Good Ol’ Summertime up in the closet when my friends came over and bring out
His Passion for the Great American Songbook
my brother’s rock and roll.
MF: (Laughter) That’s great. Those are all great soundtracks.
Rage: For your performance of Cole Porter songs, does this go back to when you did it in 2005? Is it a set list of songs or
over the past several years, have you changed it up for these concerts?
MF: As far as presenting a Porter program with symphony, the only other time was with Marvin and
the Pittsburgh Symphony a few years ago. That evolved because Bobby Short was set to do a concert
and he died. So, they asked me to take his place. I had the extraordinary experience of having access to
his orchestrations and arrangements, some of which I was able to use, others I pulled from my library
and created a few new things.
For this concert, I’m adding some things that I didn’t do in Pittsburgh. I’m changing some things. I
APRIL 2009 | RAGE monthly 51
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