Acclaimed vocalist Michael Feinstein views The Great American Songbook as a perpetually evolving entity that has stood the test of time, featuring tunes that are revisited over and over again.
“These songs have been interpreted thousands of times because they still have value, pertinence and interest for contemporary audiences,” Feinstein says. “You could compare it to Shakespeare or Picasso, in that the times change but the truthfulness of the art does not.”
Feinstein also knows why jazz vocalist Rebecca Kilgore, a headliner at Jazz Bash at the Bay, deserves credit as “one of the best interpreters of the Great American Songbook.”
It’s the same reason the Wall Street Journal calls her “the greatest singer you’ve never heard of.”
And why Kilgore is far more interested in her craft than any pop appeal.
“I’m not as big as Lady Gaga, nor do I want to be,” she says. “I’m not that well-known, but I’m asked to be on other people’s recordings and musicians know about me.”
In other words, Kilgore is a musician’s musician. She travels the world, performing jazz festivals and gigs. She teaches jazz vocal classes at a community college in Portland, Oregon. She also makes records – a lot of records. All 40 of Kilgore’s albums showcase her strong alto delivery, which has a surprisingly wide range, hitting every octave of classics, like songs from Guys and Dolls, The Sound of Music and South Pacific.
After Feinstein – founder of The Great American Songbook Foundation – heard one of Kilgore’s first records, he was so taken that he invited her to do a show with him at Carnegie Hall.
In Monterey, Kilgore will perform a slew of songbook favorites in a trombone-piano trio. She performs seven times throughout the weekend, kicking off Friday with shows at 1:30pm, 4pm and 7pm. She will also do one set featuring the songs of Frank Sinatra, and she’s teaching a free youth jazz vocal clinic 8:30am Saturday.
Kilgore says the singers – not the songs – initially drew her to the songbook.
“When I first heard Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald singing from those songbooks, I thought, ‘This is very beautiful and very hip’ and I became enamored with it,” the Massachusetts native explains. “I think it is timeless music.”
Kilgore says her approach to interpreting the music isn’t very complicated.
“I try to sing the lyrics as heartfelt as I can,” she says. “These songs are all about the lyrics, so I try to deliver them lovingly and try to tell a story.”
Also, she’s always faithful to the composer’s original melody.
In addition to teaching and performing, Kilgore is currently in the middle of recording yet another album, a collection of duets that will include one “surprise” pop tune.
“I’m proud of all [my albums],” she says. “They’re like children.”
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Ten years ago, 28-year-old Stephanie Trick never would have imagined that she’d be traveling the world, performing Harlem stride piano (a style of jazz piano in which the right hand plays melody while the left plays chords) in a four-hands piano duo with her Italian husband, Paolo Alderighi.
The classically trained Trick – a University of Chicago Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society inductee and Kobe-Breda Jazz Friendship Award winner – reinterprets late ’20s-early ’30s blues and boogie-woogie classics, while keeping the nuances intact.
“I try to find a personal way to express myself while respecting the idiom of traditional jazz,” she says.
Trick’s original takes on legends like Fats Waller and Don Lambert have wowed some of the best.
“Stephanie is one of the nicest gifts to arrive on the jazz piano scene in recent times,” stride piano great Dick Hyman said.
Through a whirlwind of Scott Joplin-tinged ragtime, Eubie Blake-coated early jazz and George Gershwin, Trick’s 10 digits pound away at the ivory keys with laser precision. Every note, every chord resonate as if it were the last.
And her collaborative work with Alderighi is pushing the limits of stride piano further.
“We have to be creative in order to find interesting textures that are rich, but not redundant and use four hands intelligently,” Trick says.
Sometime in the future, the couple plans on recording as a double trio, four hands with a rhythm bass and drums rhythm section. But first, they will return to Italy, where they’ve been touring for the past several months, to record a new album with Alderighi’s trio.
Alderighi won’t be able to join Trick in Monterey this weekend, so she’s arranged some duo sets with pianists Carl Sonny Leyland and Brian Holland, and a trio set with drummer Danny Coots and clarinettist Allan Vachè. Trick will also perform a set featuring the work of James P. Johnson (1:30pm Sunday), a stride piano pioneer who bridged the gap between jazz and ragtime.
JAZZ BASH BY THE BAY 11am-11:30pm Friday, March 6; 10am-11:30pm Saturday, March 7; 9am-4:30pm Sunday, March 8, at Monterey Conference Center, 2 Portola Plaza, Monterey. $105/3-day pass; $47/Friday and Sunday; $65/Saturday; free/children with a parent ticket holder. 675-0298, www.jazzagemonterey.com.