Michael Feinstein (b. 1957)
BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY RHYTHMS
Michael Feinstein Joins Forces With Maynard Ferguson For A Swinging Encounter
Michael Feinstein is one of the Great American Songbook's most devoted friends. A passionate music archivist and scholar as well as an acclaimed vocal stylist, pianist, and composer, Feinstein recently released his 18th record, BIG CITY RHYTHMS, collaborating with legendary trumpeter Maynard Ferguson and his big band. bn.com's David Cohen recently chatted with Feinstein, who divides his time between homes in Los Angeles and New York, where Feinsteins, his aptly named cabaret, is located.
barnesandnoble.com: Where did you get the idea to do the big-band album BIG CITY RHYTHMS?
Michael Feinstein: My last album, [MICHAEL & GEORGE: FEINSTEIN SINGS GERSHWIN] was another step toward creating a jazzier sound on disc. In the last several years there's been an interesting convergence of musical styles -- with jazz moving a little more mainstream, a resurgence of swing, and a generally raised visibility of the use of American popular standards in film and TV -- and I wanted to create a recording that would reflect that confluence by doing an album that has a lot of swing elements in it, with an existing band, and to create a recording that has a variety of sounds and songs on it.
bn.com: How did you decide on the choice of material?
MF: It was great fun putting together material for this album because I conceived it in the context of not only of what would sound good for my voice but also what would be fun to do with Maynard Ferguson's band. I was able to do big-band interpretations of songs that I might otherwise do just at the piano or with a rhythm section. There was more of a general theme as opposed to songs of George Gershwin, for example. I could include two original numbers that I created just for the recording, a couple of songs that I've known for awhile that have never been recorded, and some different interpretations of standards -- different approaches.
bn.com: Your recordings are usually so intimate. What's it like singing to a big band?
MF: I love singing with a big band and have done it a great deal in performance. It's no different for me than singing with any other type of instrumentation. It's like choosing another food to eat for dinner. I love pizza but I also love tofu.
bn.com: Did you sing live with Ferguson's big band?
MF: I usually do all my vocals live but in this instance I had just come off a week-long engagement, two shows a night, and was totally hoarse. So I did all the vocals after the band sessions. The advantage of this is that I could listen to the [band] tracks for a couple of days. Otherwise you go in cold, that's the way you usually do it. I'll rehearse at the piano, but to have the advantage of listening to the tracks for a couple of days is fantastic. But I did all 15 of the vocals in two days. It was done so quickly that no one could believe it. Most singers take a few weeks to do vocals, but I'm so accustomed to performing and singing live that I prefer to do the vocals the same way.
bn.com: Maynard Ferguson is in really fine shape. How did you two hook up?
MF: When I was thinking about doing a swing album I started thinking about existing bands. Although it would have been easy to get a great crack studio band, I wanted to work with a real band. Maynard is one of the legends of our time -- a multi-Grammy winner, multi-platinum seller - -therefore I thought it would be fun to work with him not only because of his incredible musicianship but also because it's not a group that you would think of me performing with. They are very progressive. That was one of the fun things about approaching Maynard because it's pushing the envelope a little. Interestingly, the first thing he said to me was, 'You pick whatever songs you want. I want to make sure the band accompanies you properly. You are a singer and we've got to make sure we do our job to accompany you in a way that doesn't get in your way.' He was, in a fatherly way, giving me a gentle lecture about how I need to make sure I didn't hire arrangers that would write band charts that would overpower the singer. I thought 'what a wonderful way to start a relationship.' Very generous. He couldn't have been nicer. He's so at ease in the studio. Everybody was having such a good time because of him.
bn.com: Ever feel like you're running out of "American Songbook" material?
MF: No. George Gershwin had more than 800 published songs, Cole Porter around 1,500. There's thousands and thousands of songs. The output for this genre is so extraordinarily rich that I'll never run out of material. Indeed, because there are people today still writing wonderful songs, and I'm writing songs, the problem is that I know I will never be able to sing everything I want to sing. I have stacks of music at home. It's constant. It's infinite and wonderful.
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