"Lyric writers and composers are your biggest fans,"
Jule Styne tells
Michael Feinstein in the lengthy interview included in the booklet for
Feinstein's second formal "songbook" album, which, like its predecessor, devoted to
Burton Lane, finds
Feinstein singing over the playing of the songwriter in question, who sits at the piano, occasionally chiming in or taking over the microphone entirely.
Styne is right, no doubt, as has been demonstrated since the days when
Feinstein worked for
Ira Gershwin and
Harry Warren, before he took up performing. It's not that
Feinstein is that great a singer; lyric writers and composers (including
Styne, as he points out) were big fans of
Fred Astaire, too, and he never had much of a voice. But
Feinstein is an unabashed acolyte of the great songwriters, and he tries to render their songs the way the songwriters themselves hear them. Certainly, he displays considerable rapport with
Styne here, the thirty-something singer seemingly leaning over the piano, sheet music in hand, as the eighty-something composer sits at the keyboard lovingly playing his old hits and a bunch of obscure gems. There are false starts and bits of conversation, lending a tone of spontaneity to the proceedings. Not all of
Styne's biggest hits are here, of course. To begin with, "People" from Funny Girl gets only a one-minute instrumental treatment at the start, and songs that don't suit the performer and the situation ("Don't Rain on My Parade," for example) are missing. But many of
Styne's hits are here and so are songs that music fans will be delighted to discover. No
Michael Feinstein album would be complete without some arcane selections nobody's heard before, and here two bear lyrics by
Stephen Sondheim, with whom
Styne worked on Gypsy. "Nice She Ain't" was written for, but cut from that show for the simple reason that
Jack Klugman, for whom it was written, couldn't sing it well enough. Then there's "Home Is the Place," a non-show
Styne/
Sondheim said to be one of three melodies
Sondheim set for
Styne in the late ‘60s that makes you wonder what the other two sound like.
Styne himself, no shrinking violet he, sings "Let's See What Happens," the cute novelty "The Guy in the Polka Dotted Tie," and his first-ever song, "Sunday" from 1926. He also, near the end, takes away from
Feinstein one of his standards, proudly braying, "Time after time/You'll hear me say that I'm/So lucky to be … Jule Styne!" He is also lucky to have lived long enough to participate in this tribute to his music. ~ William Ruhlmann