Singer/pianist Michael Feinstein rose to attention during the 1980s both by fueling and by capitalizing on a fresh wave of curiosity about pre-rock standards, then sustained a long career through meticulous readings of the classic repertoire while also exploring jazz, classical, and country idioms with comparable ease. He began as a favored nightclub act before graduating to larger theatrical stages and securing major-label releases. His first studio effort, Pure Gershwin, appeared in 1987 and established a pattern of regular appearances on Billboard’s Jazz Albums and Traditional Jazz Albums charts; among those entries that reached the top five of the latter tally were 1998’s Feinstein Sings Gershwin (which climbed to number one), 2001’s Big City Rhythms, 2002’s Michael Feinstein with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and 2008’s The Sinatra Project, the last of which also peaked at number three on both lists. The 2014 holiday set A Michael Feinstein Christmas placed on the seasonal albums chart, after which Feinstein revisited the catalog of George and Ira Gershwin for 2022’s Gershwin Country—an assortment of duets featuring Dolly Parton, Brad Paisley, and Rosanne Cash—and for 2024’s Gershwin Rhapsody, a partnership with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet that introduced four previously unknown Gershwin compositions in their world-premiere recordings.
Michael Jay Feinstein entered the world on September 7, 1956, in Columbus, Ohio. His father, Edward Feinstein, held an executive post in the meat industry yet had once worked as a band vocalist, while his mother, Mazie Feinstein, pursued amateur tap dancing. Feinstein began picking out tunes on the piano by ear at the age of five and developed an early passion for the popular songs of earlier eras, eventually assembling an extensive record library. In 1976 his family relocated to Los Angeles, where he soon encountered several of the songwriters whose work he admired. Ira Gershwin employed him to organize the lyricist’s archives, a task that continued until Gershwin’s death in 1983; Feinstein also assisted Harry Warren between 1981 and 1982.
Thereafter he committed himself to full-time cabaret performance, launching the effort in Los Angeles. A 1986 booking at the Oak Room of New York’s Algonquin Hotel stretched to four months and yielded the concert recording Live at the Algonquin. Asylum issued his studio debut, Pure Gershwin, the following year. The 1987 release Remember: Michael Feinstein Sings Irving Berlin reached the top five of the jazz chart and headed the traditional-jazz list, paving the way for a Broadway engagement: Michael Feinstein in Concert: Isn’t It Romantic opened at the Lyceum Theatre on April 19, 1988. That same year he delivered his third studio album, also titled Isn’t It Romantic. Two thematic collections appeared in 1989—Over There on Angel, devoted to World War I material, and The M.G.M. Album on Elektra.
For Nonesuch, Feinstein began a series of songbook projects recorded in collaboration with the composers themselves, beginning with Burton Lane in August 1990 (a second volume followed in November 1992), then continuing with Jule Styne in 1991, Jerry Herman in 1993, and Hugh Martin in 1995. Meanwhile, on Elektra he offered the children’s album Pure Imagination in 1992 and the balanced contemporary-and-standard set Forever in 1993. He next moved to Atlantic for 1995’s Such Sweet Sorrow and 1996’s Nice Work If You Can Get It: Songs by the Gershwins, before joining Concord with 1998’s Michael & George: Feinstein Sings Gershwin, issued to mark the centenary of George Gershwin’s birth.
In 1999 Feinstein lent his name to a sophisticated cabaret room at New York’s Regency Hotel; Feinstein’s at the Regency soon hosted numerous refined performers alongside its namesake, and a second venue later opened in Hollywood. That year also saw the release of Big City Rhythms, recorded with the Maynard Ferguson Big Band, which climbed to the top three of the Traditional Jazz Albums chart. The two-disc Romance on Film/Romance on Broadway arrived in late 2000, its first disc captured live. May 2002 brought Michael Feinstein with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, again a top-five traditional-jazz entry. Later that year Concord established the Feinery imprint to spotlight overlooked treasures from the American Popular Songbook; its inaugural release, Michael Feinstein Sings the Livingston & Evans Songbook, appeared in October 2002. Only One Life, centered on Jimmy Webb songs, followed in 2003. Feinstein teamed with George Shearing for 2005’s Hopeless Romantics. The Sinatra Project surfaced in 2008 and placed in the top three on both jazz charts. The next year he and Broadway performer Cheyenne Jackson issued The Power of Two on Harbinger Records. Duckhole released 2010’s Fly Me to the Moon, featuring guitarist Joe Negri, while 2011 saw both The Sinatra Project, Vol. 2: The Good Life on Concord and, on Duckhole, Cheek to Cheek: Cook and Feinstein with Barbara Cook together with We Dreamed These Days alongside the Carmel Symphony Orchestra. Telarc presented Change of Heart: The Songs of André Previn in 2013, and A Michael Feinstein Christmas entered the top 40 of the Billboard holiday albums chart at the end of 2014.
Although concerts and periodic appearances as a presenter on Turner Classic Movies kept Feinstein visible, eight years passed before another album emerged. Craft Recordings issued Gershwin Country in 2022, uniting Feinstein with ten country artists and executive producer Liza Minnelli across eleven Gershwin duets. He remained with the Gershwin brothers for 2024’s Gershwin Rhapsody, again partnering with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Issued to commemorate the 1924 premiere of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, the album contained world-premiere recordings of four rediscovered songs—“Graceful and Elegant,” “Dance of the Waves,” “Sutton Place,” and “Under the Cinnamon Tree”—woven among piano duos, solo piano pieces, and vocal performances by Feinstein.
