Michael Feinstein’s Antidote to TV

Michael Feinstein, cabaret artist extraordinaire , has made the crossover to children’s music with a stunning mix of jazz, ragtime, ballad and big-band sounds from the ‘30s to the ‘80s. The album, “Pure Imagination,” is just out on Elektra.

On the face of it, it’s an unlikely departure for Feinstein, who has carved out a big chunk of stardom in the last five years with his elegant interpretations of classic American popular music.

Dedicated to preserving that genre, the 35-year-old singer-pianist found his professional calling during the six years he spent as assistant and archivist to lyricist Ira Gershwin. That was followed by best-selling albums, concert appearances, award-winning one-man shows and international tours.

But it was a childhood spent immersed in the music of his parents’ time that first sparked Feinstein’s passion for composers such as Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and the Gershwins. He’d like his children’s album to kindle a similar spark in today’s pre-MTV crowd.

“I hope they’ll be carried away by the magnificence of the melodies and cleverness of the lyrics,” he said. “And I hope it will stimulate them to other kinds of music.”

He suspects many of his adult fans “will find this album may be their favorite record of all the ones I’ve done. It’s not exclusively for children. That’s what good music is about.”

The cuts on the album, often newly arranged, meticulously chosen and in many cases plucked out of obscurity, are decidedly eclectic.

The title song, with its dreamy orchestral swell, was taken from the film “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and includes an added chorus written for the album by lyricist Leslie Bricusse.

Among the familiar--”Swinging on a Star,” “Teddy Bears Picnic”--are the unfamiliar. “Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet,” a nostalgic story song about a pair of lovelorn shop window hats, is from a 1946 Disney animated feature called “Make Mine Music.” Sung by the Andrews Sisters, it was one of Feinstein’s favorite 78s when he was a child. “It had a crack in it,” he said, “and I played it over and over again.”

Feinstein had to track down the sheet music for the plaintive “Because We’re Kids” and “The Dressing Song” from the original score of the ‘50s children’s film “The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.” The lyricist was Dr. Seuss; Frederick Hollander wrote the music.

Milton Schafer’s “I Like Old People” was another hard-to-find piece; Feinstein’s heartfelt rendition has a personal resonance.

Rosemary Clooney, one of Feinstein’s favorite singers (they’ll do a Hollywood Bowl concert together in July), joins him in a jazzy duet of Robert and Richard Sherman’s “Ten Feet Off the Ground.” Ray Evans and Jay Livingston’s zany ‘50s horror movie spoof song “The Mole People,” features “chomp-a-diddy” sound effects newly recorded by the composers.

Feinstein mourns the lack of a “cross-pollination with different kinds of music. It has all but vanished today. The opportunities to hear acoustic music are becoming slimmer and slimmer, when a lot of children’s music is dominated by a pop and rock sound.”

Feinstein remembers “watching ‘The Lawrence Welk Show’ with my family every Saturday night. I remember the young people’s concerts on television with Leonard Bernstein and later with Michael Tilson Thomas.

“Those shows don’t exist anymore. Kids turn on the TV and they hear the same sound over and over again. The thing that’s scary is, I’ll ask a young person what they think of a certain song and they say, ‘I don’t know, I have to see the video.’

The entertainer is “in the process of putting together some concerts just aimed at kids,” and another children’s album is a distinct possibility. “This allowed me to get in touch with the child in me, my own child,” he said. “It opened me up in an unexpected way and I’m very grateful for it.”