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Feinstein at
RDYLQLD LQ 2009
We as performers are completely fueled
by the collective energy that comes to us
from the audience as well as from each
individual.”
If Feinstein could bottle his pro-
found enthusiasm for the music he
champions, the jazz that fuels his soul,
he probably would. ere is no other
artist, except perhaps Tony Bennett,
who is as dedicated to passing the torch
on to a new generation. It is almost a
race against time to preserve all that the
Great American Songbook embodies,
the songs that fewer and fewer artists
and younger generations are discover-
ing. But it is not an exclusive challenge,
Feinstein said.
“ e history of the Great American
Songbook is getting lost along with our
cultural history. It is not exclusive to this
kind of music. It is the result of the lack
of [arts] education in our country for
the past years or so, and we are pay-
ing the price for it. Now what has hap-
pened politically is directly related to the
lack of arts in our society because [arts
and music] are the glue that connects us,
the thing that brings people together on
an emotional level that is not possible in
any other way. And people with di er-
ent backgrounds and opinions can come
together and recognize the humanity
in each soul. And having lost that, we
have come to this Red State–Blue State
crisis and it confounds me that people
are not able to see that. So I advocate
for the arts in any way possible. I go to
Capitol Hill quite o en, to the Library of
Congress, and I meet congressmen and
senators and I talk to them about [the
arts education crisis], but they don’t do
anything about it.”
Feinstein is not deterred. Chalk it
up to the rst time a pre-teen Feinstein
heard the George Gershwin’s
Rhapsody
in Blue
via a record loaned to him. He
“was hooked,” Feinstein said in a
Westminster Town Hall Forum in Min-
neapolis. “I never had this galvanizing
experience with music until then. I had
to nd out about the man who created
this music.”
He did that and so much more.
“It’s hard to explain why a certain
kind of music touches anybody in the
way that it does,” Feinstein said during
our conversation. “However, with
Gershwin—with George Gershwin’s
music and Ira Gershwin’s lyrics—there
is something in it that speaks to me on a
very deep level. I also believe in karma,
reincarnation, and soul groups joining
in and gathering from place to place.
And because of that there is some soul
connection to that sound that helps to
complete who I am. When music a ects
us, it literally is physiologically changing
us, and so it is not odd for me to think
of music as having an e ect on the en-
tire being. It all is one thing to me, and
I believe that George Gershwin under-
stood that to a degree. … I think that
there is a certain kind of divine spark
that comes through his music.
“I have no idea how much contempo-
rary pop music will be celebrated in
years, but inevitably there is music being
written today that will probably become
part of the American Songbook. And
I certainly believe that the clubs will
always be around in one way or another.
As technology becomes more Orwellian,
people will have more of the inherent
need for live music and the personal ex-
change that that o ers. I’m not Pollyan-
na, but I can’t imagine a time when most
music does not survive in live perfor-
mance because of the rediscovery that
happens with every young soul.”
Miriam Di Nunzio is the Entertainment Arts Editor at
the
Chicago Sun-Times
.
When I do a summer venue like
Ravinia, it becomes inherently
more celebratory, something
that is always very romantic
and feels very special.
RUSSELL JENKINS/RAVINIA
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