Everybody knows iconic crooner Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco.
Soon, local audiences will be swooning over his unforgettable tunes when singer and pianist Michael Feinstein — the ambassador of the Great American Songbook — and the Carnegie Hall Big Band perform a tribute concert featuring the legendary singer's greatest songs Tuesday night at E.J. Thomas Hall .
The concert will kick off Tuesday Musical Association's 2024-2025 concert series with a splash as 10 of Northeast Ohio's finest jazz musicians join forces with New York musicians touring with Feinstein in "Because of You: My Tribute to Tony Bennett featuring the Carnegie Hall Big Band." The 30-city tour follows the show's sold-out debut in March at Carnegie Hall.
Favorites celebrating the late Bennett, Feinstein's longtime friend, will include "Rags to Riches," "The Best Is Yet to Come," “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “Stranger in Paradise” and, of course, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." The show will be a multimedia experience that includes anecdotes about the Italian-American crooner, who died last year at age 96 .
Paul Ferguson, artistic director of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra (CJO) and director of jazz studies at Case Western Reserve University, brought together 10 Northeast Ohio musicians who will back the Carnegie Hall Big Band Tuesday night. They are trumpeters Dave Banks and Jack Schantz; reed players Tom Reed, George Shernit and Brad Wagner; trombonists including him, Brett Balika, Paul Hungerford and Mark Mauldin; and guitarist Jeremy Poparad.
"I'm very fortunate that some of my best friends also happen to be some of the very best musicians in Northeast Ohio," Ferguson, of Lakewood, said by phone recently.
Ferguson praised Barberton resident Schantz as "one of the world's premiere jazz trumpet soloists" and Akron resident Banks as "one of the great big band lead trumpet players."
"It's a chance for us to play with some of the best players in New York and it's just plain fun, because a lot of times you find like they're really exceptional, but so are we," Ferguson said.
Ferguson studied jazz with Roland Paolucci and Pat Pace at the University of Akron and received his master's at Eastman School of Music. He formerly toured with the Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller bands.
The trombonist has played with both Feinstein and Bennett in the past: He backed Feinstein with Rosemary Clooney in a Gershwin salute at E.J. Thomas Hall in 1999 and played with Bennett with Clooney at Akron's former Breakaway nightclub in 1983.
Background on headliner Michael Feinstein
Feinstein, 68, was born and raised in Columbus and started playing piano by ear at age 5. In his early 20s, he worked for six years as Ira Gershwin's assistant in Los Angeles.
His work as an entertainer as well as an interpreter, educator, ambassador and archivist of the Great American Songbook has earned him five Grammy Award nominations, Emmy-nominated PBS specials and an acclaimed NPR series. He founded the Great American Songbook Foundation and the annual high school Songbook Academy in Carmel, Indiana.
Get to know Akron-area musicians in Feinstein concert
Longtime local jazz trumpeter Jack Schantz is perhaps best known in the Akron area as former director of jazz studies at the University of Akron, where he retired in 2020. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in theory and a master's degree in trumpet from UA.
He toured twice with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, the Glenn Miller Orchestra in Japan and on the East Coast, the Artie Shaw Orchestra and with Woody Herman. Schantz also was artistic director of the CJO from 1994 to 2009. He's performed with the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, Blossom Festival Orchestra, Blossom Festival Band and Akron Symphony Orchestra and leads the Jack Schantz Jazz Unit and Jack Schantz Jazz Quartet.
Schantz, a Bennett fan, remembers backing the crooner in concert in Cleveland in the late '80s.
"I just remember he worked his ass off. He did an hour and a half straight (singing). He was really something," Schantz said. "The impression I got from Tony Bennett was he was pretty much what you see is what you get."
Trumpeter Dave Banks , who leads his own group the Dave Banks Big Band , played lead trumpet for Feinstein when he performed at Blossom Music Center in 2015.
"He's got a great, great book of music and (he's) a wonderful performer," the Akron resident said.
In another connection to the artist, through a mutual friend, Feinstein once sent Banks his original, hand-copied lead sheet of his song "Christmas Is an Island" to use for a vocal soloist in a Christmas show at the Canton Palace Theatre.
Banks, raised in Cuyahoga Falls, is no stranger to backing entertainers after performing for 20 years in Las Vegas showrooms. Since returning to Northeast Ohio, the Akron resident has been active with the CJO and formerly taught music and drama at Walsh Jesuit High School. He also performs with the Jack Schantz Jazz Unit and Ernie Krivda's Fat Tuesday Big Band.
Backup musicians don't normally get the set list or music until rehearsal the day of the show, so these pros sight read the music at the rehearsal and perform it that night. That's expected to be the case for the Feinstein concert as well as this week's Frankie Avalon concert, for which Banks contracted seven local musicians to play, including himself.
"It's actually nice that we're actually able to do some live music in E.J. Thomas again, so I'm excited for that," he said.
Banks, Schantz and Ferguson share jazz roots that go back to their UA days together, when they performed and recorded with the UA Jazz Ensemble at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland in 1980.
"We've known each other since the '70s, back in our days in college. And to see that we're all still here, working and providing top-notch musical concerts, it's a tribute, really, to the area and how good it was in bringing up really fine musicians," Banks said.
Alto saxophonist Brad Wagner , who lives in Ellet, is a 12-year CJO member who also will play for the Bennett tribute. The Akron native has a bachelor of music in jazz studies from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music.
Local groups he performs with include Ernie Krivda and the Fat Tuesday Big Band, Bobby Selvaggio’s Hendectet Jazz Collective and Moustache Yourself. The composer-arranger also runs his own big band featuring his own charts.
Wagner also played with Feinstein in his 2015 Blossom concert along with Banks. The saxophonist said that as a backup artist, it's often a treat to find out the day of the concert what jazz celebrity you're playing next to.
"When these events happen, there's always like a really cool surprise to find out I'm sitting next to someone that I might have albums of from New York City," he said. "It'll most likely be some of the top names in the New York jazz scene."
Cuyahoga Falls resident Jeremey Poparad , who plays guitar, bass and double bass, will play guitar for the Bennett show. He said it's always fun to have the chance to play a high-profile event like Feinstein's tour.
"As a guitar player, my part is kind of unimportant, so I get to kind of sit back and enjoy other people, having the spotlight and just be supportive to them. There's a little less pressure on me, since I'm kind of just an accompanist role the whole time," Poparad said.
The musician received bachelor's degrees in jazz studies and music composition from UA and master's degrees in electric guitar performance and music composition from Cleveland State University. Now, he's pursuing a doctorate in music theory and composition at Kent State University.
Locally, Poparad performs with jazz, rock and classical ensembles including Danjo Orchestra, Axon-Neuron and the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra.
Feinstein's work protecting and furthering the Great American Songbook is very important to jazz artists, Poparad said.
"As a jazz musician, that's a huge part of the repertoire I've spent my life studying so we all as jazz musicians kind of revere that repertoire and we also find ourselves playing that music in a lot of different formats," he said.
Arts and restaurant writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.
Details
Concert: Michael Feinstein's "Because of You: My Tribute to Tony Bennett featuring the Carnegie Hall Big Band"
What: Gala opening of Tuesday Musical's 2024-'25 Akron Concert Series
When: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 22
Where: E.J. Thomas Hall, 198 Hill St., University of Akron
Cost: $19-$65; students, free
Information: tuesdaymusical.org or 330-761-3460
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron artists join Michael Feinstein on Tuesday Musical stage in Tony Bennett tribute show
Local News
Comments / 0