SAVOR THE MUSIC A MOMENT WITH
MICHAEL FEINSTEIN
by joel martens At this point, he really has done almost all of it. Multiple performances at major venues across
the land, work with an impressive list of musical heavyweights, from world-class orchestras, pop and Broadway performers, to his work with some of America’s greatest composers. His personal songbook includes multi-platinum-selling albums, with two-time Emmy and five-time Grammy Award-nominated performances. A successful producer, conductor, author and conservator extraordinaire, Michael Feinstein has dedicated his life to music and it shows in everything he takes on.
Not bad for a little boy who started, “banging away on an old broken-down piano in the base- ment” at five years old. Doing it “naturally by ear,” belying an inherent, almost magical, cellular memory he explains this way, “It just felt like I came in again with musical ability that I must have carried over from some other time.”
Lucky for us, this cycle in Feinstein’s journey adds sweet music... to our here and now.
Your commitment to your craft and to preserving the American Songbook is such a gift. There aren’t many others doing it on the level you have taken it to. Thank you. It’s what I love doing and I don’t take it for
granted. Especially now that it has been so many years since I started. I never expected that I would have a sustained ca- reer performing this music. It’s still rather remarkable to me. I am fascinated by your process, is it true that you learned to play primarily by ear? I learned to play completely by ear. I played with both
hands immediately, when I sat down and it was very natural for me. I just understood how to play. It’s something that had always been just a given. There was never any learning curve. With time, of course, I did get better on the piano, but because I knew how to play it from the get-go, it was very comfortable and familiar. It sort of epitomizes the “inhabiting an old soul” idiom. It’s true. I believe that I came back in from another
existence for music. I believe in reincarnation, it’s another thing that has always seemed natural to me. I’ve always just accepted the concept in my soul. I read about your connection with another “old soul,” Ira Gershwin. Was that a defining moment in your career, as far as the American Songbook? By the time I met Ira Gershwin, I was pretty well versed
in the songs and loved them. Meeting him, was of course extraordinary, because he furthered my knowledge and education in a way that couldn’t have come from anyone else.
46 RAGE monthly | APRIL 2015
Would you say that the passion you have for preservation was born out of that experience? As far as preservation goes, I don’t know anyone that is
as vociferous at it, as I am. There are certainly many others that love it and preserve in different ways, but for whatever reason, it has become a life’s work for me. When I’m not per- forming, I’m collecting, archiving and preserving what I can. I was just at the office of a man named Emile Charlap,
who is 96. He is a copyist and music preparation person, on many, many musicals [A Chorus Line, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Prelude to a Kiss, to name a few]. In his collection, I found the original score for Pousse-Café, which was Duke Ellington’s last Broadway musical. I found what looks like the complete score in his office; he must have worked on it in 1966. That must have felt like striking gold. Ellington’s work occupies such a pivotal place in the American musical landscapes. As far as I know, there are no recordings of that particular show, are there? There is one recording that Marshall Barer did years ago;
it was done well after the show had closed. It’s a very poor quality, live recording and it’s not easy to hear, the audio is very dim. Luckily, these are the piano conductor parts from which an orchestration can be restored. I’d love to get a primer from you for The Rage Monthly’s readers, on what exactly the “American Songbook” encompasses. The American Songbook is ever-evolving. It doesn’t have
a cut-off date, it just continues. For me, by definition, the “Great American Songbook” is music that has transcended the era in which it was written and becomes timeless. It’s
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