{"id":243803,"date":"2010-08-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-20T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/feinstein-does-it-his-way-in-concert-that-draws-from-sinatras-songbook\/"},"modified":"2010-08-20T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-20T07:00:00","slug":"feinstein-does-it-his-way-in-concert-that-draws-from-sinatras-songbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/feinstein-does-it-his-way-in-concert-that-draws-from-sinatras-songbook\/","title":{"rendered":"Feinstein does it his way in concert that draws from Sinatra\u2019s songbook"},"content":{"rendered":"

Por Christy Scannell
\nEditor s\u00e9nior de SDUN
\n<\/strong>
\nMichael Feinstein didn\u2019t fully appreciate Frank Sinatra. At first.<\/p>\n

\"Feinstein<\/a>
Pianist and singer Michael Feinstein, who joins the Symphony Pops Aug. 27 and 28, is considered to be one of the premier interpreters of the Great American Songbook. (Courtesy San Diego Symphony) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\u201cI liked the orchestrations (of his songs) before I liked the interpretations because I had to get past his constant changing of the lyrics,\u201d he said. \u201cHe would make lyric changes that were gratuitous and of the moment. I think it\u2019s truly his Achilles heel. So many of his records that would be definitive are not because of a moment where he just sings something ridiculous (instead of the written lyric).\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bold statement\u2014few people dare critique the Chairman of the Board\u2014but Feinstein\u2019s passion for and performance of American standards has earned him review rights and monikers such as \u201cThe Ambassador of the Great American Songbook.\u201d A multi-platinum-selling entertainer who plays 150 shows annually, Feinstein has released numerous recordings of standards in his career of 20-plus years, the most recent of which is \u201cThe Sinatra Project.\u201d Feinstein will bring those Sinatra hits to the San Diego Symphony Aug. 27 and 28 as part of the Bridgepoint Education Summer Pops series.<\/p>\n

Clearly, he was able to set aside his disdain for Sinatra\u2019s tarnished lyrics. Perhaps that happened when he spent time with the man himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very, very nice to me at a time in my life when I was nobody and there was no prize in being nice to me,\u201d Feinstein said. \u201cI think he appreciated my enthusiasm for his work and my knowledge of his career. I was able to ask him a lot of questions and he answered them rapid fire even though his memory was failing at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feinstein was no stranger to being in the presence of musical greatness. As a young man in the late \u201970s he left his piano bar playing gig in his Columbus, Ohio, hometown and sought fame in Los Angeles. While selling pianos (he had been playing by ear since age 5), an incredible set of circumstances led him to the door of composer Ira Gershwin and his wife, Leonore. Mrs. Gershwin, impressed with Feinstein\u2019s knowledge of Gershwin tunes, hired him to be the ailing Ira\u2019s companion and assistant. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was one of the most remarkable people I\u2019ve ever met,\u201d said Feinstein, who spent years archiving Gershwin\u2019s work while under his tutelage. \u201cHe was a born educator. He taught me about lyrics and the collaborative process\u2014it was an extraordinary education I couldn\u2019t have gotten at any college.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Feinstein went on to bring standards back to audiences who had forgotten them as rock \u2018n\u2019 roll and disco had taken over the public fancy. Beginning with \u201cLive at the Algonquin\u201d in 1987, a recording of his New York cabaret act, he continued to honor writers such as Ira and George Gershwin (\u201cPure Gershwin\u201d), Irving Berlin, Burton Lane, Jule Styne, Jerry Herman and Hugh Martin with recorded songbooks.<\/p>\n

It is not a task he takes lightly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese songs were created in the thousands by people who were in most cases in friendly competition with each other. The standards were so high that this dizzying body of work is unsurpassed,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a combination of great artists all creating output at the same time and everyone agrees that that time will never come again nor will it ever be bettered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey always were looking for an eloquent way of expressing the oft-expressed and that\u2019s what great art is\u2014it takes the mundane experience and heightens it and makes it extraordinary looking at it from a different perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feinstein said he used that same method in his approach to the Sinatra recording.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first (intention) was not to imitate him. My second was to emulate the essence of what he did, to take the innovations of what he did in music and incorporate them in a way that would evoke him but not copy him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging that \u201cwas not easy to do,\u201d Feinstein said one way he made the music his own was by interpreting Sinatra tunes in a way that Sinatra did not. For example, Feinstein added a Nelson Riddle flavor to \u201cBegin the Beguine,\u201d a song Sinatra never performed with Riddle, one of his favorite conductors. The result is a version that is \u201cfamiliar but original,\u201d Feinstein said.<\/p>\n

The San Diego show will include songs from \u201cThe Sinatra Project\u201d as well as tunes Feinstein arranged but didn\u2019t record for the album, such as \u201cLuck Be a Lady,\u201d and other American songbook favorites. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be a theatrical show with a lot of anecdotes and a lot of fun marginalia in between the songs,\u201d he said. \u201cIt puts them in a context that I think makes them very, very compelling.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Christy Scannell SDUN Senior Editor Michael Feinstein didn\u2019t fully appreciate Frank Sinatra. At first. \u201cI liked the orchestrations (of his songs) before I liked the interpretations because I had to get past his constant changing of the lyrics,\u201d he said. \u201cHe would make lyric changes that were gratuitous and of the moment. I think […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1287,"featured_media":243606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Feinstein does it his way in concert that draws from Sinatra\u2019s songbook","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}