Center Books Ella, Connick, Feinstein

In its strongest offering of American popular music since it opened nearly four years ago, the Orange County Performing Arts Center has booked legendary jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, fast-rising New Orleans pianist-singer Harry Connick Jr. and Broadway singer Michael Feinstein for a three-concert “American song” series.

Fitzgerald will appear Oct. 1, backed by the Mike Wofford Trio, capping the series that begins June 23 with Feinstein and continues July 7 with Connick.

Fitzgerald, 71, has recorded more than 200 albums and singles and has received 12 Grammy awards. She last performed in Orange County in September, 1984, in a benefit concert at the Irvine Bowl in Laguna Beach.

Connick, who gained national recognition in 1989 for his recordings on the Grammy Award-winning soundtrack of the film “When Harry Met Sally,” last appeared in Orange County a year ago this month, at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. In that show, he was accompanied by a jazz combo; for the Center concert, he will be backed by a 17-piece band.

Although only 22, Connick has been the toast of New Orleans jazz circles for several years for his prodigious technical wizardry and his championing of the pre-bop style of such early jazz greats as Earl (Fatha) Hines. His detractors, however, have criticized his penchant for sometimes letting his desire to be a populist entertainer get in the way of his music-making.

Feinstein (who also has been contracted to perform the day before his Center concert at a private party for outgoing Center Chairman Henry T. Segerstrom) has been touring with a one-man show that salutes American show tunes. After a 1988 solo show he gave at the Wilshire Theatre in Los Angeles, Times Theater Critic Dan Sullivan wrote: “Feinstein may not have a big voice or a huge piano technique, but he’s got brains and taste and he’s got the energy of a born performer. . . . There’s an imp here, in the Eddie Cantor tradition.”

Center officials repeatedly have cited competition from other venues and scheduling problems as reasons why they largely have avoided quality popular music in favor of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway retreads. Announcing this series, Center President Thomas R. Kendrick said he had a greater number of open dates this summer because fewer Broadway musicals are touring. Still, he called the series “a gamble.”

“We can’t afford to lose money on this type of show when we are going to the community and asking for $150,000 to subsidize American Ballet Theatre’s recent engagement,” he said. Subscriptions for the series will range from $47 to $120 and will go on sale May 6. Tickets for individual shows will go on sale four to six weeks before each concert. Information: (714) 556-2787.