a&e features
Michael Feinstein on Sinatra, married life and more
Out crooner to play Strathmore on Dec. 11
Michael Feinstein says he’s cultivated a niche career by staying busy and giving his audience ways to grow musically with him. (Photo by Gilles Toucas courtesy Strathmore)
Michael Feinstein Sinatra Centennial
Friday, Dec. 11
8 p.m.
$55-125
Music Center at Strathmore
5301 Tuckerman Lane
North Bethesda, Md.
With two albums and a PBS special dedicated to Frank Sinatra, out crooner Michael Feinstein, who’s been called the “ambassador of the Great American Songbook” is no stranger to the music of “Ol’ Blue Eyes.”
On Friday, Dec. 11, the eve of Sinatra’s 100th birthday, Feinstein will bring his Sinatra Centennial show to the Strathmore. We spoke to him by phone from Manhattan last week. His comments have been slightly edited for length.
WASHINGTON BLADE: You’ve recorded a lot of Sinatra material. Will this show be mostly those songs or others as well?
MICHAEL FEINSTEIN: Yes, it will include some of those things.
BLADE: Tell us a bit more.
FEINSTEIN: The concert is the centenary tribute to Sinatra, literally the day before his hundredth birthday and we have a fantastic swing band, a 17-piece big band that will be playing this music, which will consist of familiar Sinatra songs and some less familiar things that I think tell the story of his life and career. The show is not your typical Sinatra tribute in that I have no desire to imitate him or sound like him or do arrangements exactly as he did them. It’s my interpretation and my point of view of this great artist and a chance to share this musical experience with people that helps illuminate the glory of what he left for us. It’s a very personal tribute and a very upbeat, fun show with a lot of humorous anecdotes. Very interactive. … I was lucky to get to know him and he was very nice to me.
BLADE: Will you be doing any Christmas material as well?
FEINSTEIN: No Christmas material is planned. I assume people will be hearing enough Christmas music.
BLADE: Why has Sinatra lasted?
FEINSTEIN: Sinatra lasts because his art is timeless. He took what we now call the Great American Songbook and helped elevate it to its current status as being appreciated for its uniqueness of artistic expression. When he started singing these songs, he was one of the few who recognized that these were classics and many of them were fairly new then. Some were only 10 or 15 years old when he sang them but at that point he already perceived them as being set apart from other pop music that was happening at the time and that helped build an audience appreciation for Cole Porter or George Gershwin or Irving Berlin or you name it. Throughout his career he always championed and mentioned the names of his songwriters and brought them to Carnegie Hall or the Hollywood Bowl or whoever. He’s one of the key components of why these songs have survived.
BLADE: Albums were kind of a different animal then and were recorded very quickly. Obviously his songs have lasted but do his albums still stand up today?
FEINSTEIN: They were able to be recorded quickly because of the level of talent involved and that was just the way it was done. … The fact that they could record an album like “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!” in a day or two days is pretty remarkable and spectacular and that’s because all those musicians played live perfectly so there was no need for overdubbing, no need for the technology that we use now to compensate for lesser ability and sloppy craft in some cases. I mean, I love technology now and it has affected the evolution of recorded music in a great way, but in those times, that was just the way it was done. Recorded live and Sinatra was prepared like an athlete prepares for an event. He was in shape and he went out and did it.
BLADE: Frank Sinatra Jr. was here with a tribute show to his dad a few months ago. Have you seen his show?
FEINSTEIN: I know Frank Jr. but I’ve never seen his tribute. But I’ve spent time with him and am very fond of him.
BLADE: So often when the public is interested in old school pop culture all they care about is who was sleeping with whom or who was gay and this kind of thing. You’re so knowledgeable about songwriters and craft and that side of it. Does this endless preoccupation with the stars’ personal lives ever annoy you or is there enough space to discuss craft that it’s satisfaction enough?
FEINSTEIN: The reason Frank Sinatra survives is because of his art and all the other stuff is sensational. I understand why it interests people and they love to connect that to his art and there is certainly, to a degree, a connection. His marriage and tempestuous relationship with Ava Gardner famously affected the way he sang torch songs in that phase of his life. But ultimately it’s about the art and the craft. It doesn’t frustrate me that people are interested in the other aspects because hopefully it will lead them to the art. Many years ago I was at the funeral of Jay Livingston, an Oscar-winning songwriter. We were at his service at Westwood Cemetery where Marilyn Monroe is buried and a lot of other famous people. I noticed some young girls gathered around Marilyn’s crypt and they started talking to me. They said, “Oh, we love Marilyn Monroe.” And I said, “What movies do you like?” And they said, “Oh, we’ve never seen any of her movies.” It made me laugh. But hopefully they’ll discover why Marilyn Monroe was a star.
BLADE: You’ve done a lot of work for music conservation. What did you make of the recent news that the University of California at Santa Barbara has digitized thousands of old wax cylinders from the turn of the century and made them available for digital download?
FEINSTEIN: Yes, they’re opening a new facility in January and it’s just an extraordinary place. David Seubert is part of the recording preservation board of which I’m also a member and you know we have, in Carmel, Indiana, the foundation that I started, the Great American Songbook Foundation and we have a similar but different archive for American popular music and we’ve digitized a couple of thousand lacquer discs that we hope to put online. The cylinders are available to put online because they’re so old, there are no copyright issues. RCA gave permission to the university to put them online but the problem is that a lot of things can’t legally be put online because of copyright issues so that’s what’s wonderful about what they’ve been able to accomplish. We hope to be able to put a lot of ours online and we just had a meeting about that last week. That’s the key to the survival of this music.
BLADE: I saw a photo of you recently with Tab Hunter. Did you meet him recently?
FEINSTEIN: Tab is a friend and his partner, Allan (Glaser), they live in Montecito and I have a ranch a few miles away so we spend a lot of time together when we’re in the same part of the world.
BLADE: All kinds of pop and rock acts are having charts made of their hits and doing shows with various orchestras. What do you make of this trend?
FEINSTEIN: I guess it’s an inevitable progression of one’s career where eventually they’ll start performing with symphonies. With the aging of their audience, orchestras are looking for more repertoire that they can perform to draw in these audiences. Sometimes these shows are sublime and sometimes not so good. It depends on whether the artists have had orchestrations made that really use the symphony to augment their art or if they just have the symphony playing what we call footballs, whole notes with the strings just sort of sawing away this incidental accompaniment. I’ve seen both but I don’t want to say which is which.
BLADE: Do you have a new album planned for 2016?
FEINSTEIN: I am working on a project that unfortunately I can’t speak about yet but it’s going to be a massive, multi-CD project and something quite unique in my discography. That has a great deal of my focus right now.
BLADE: You have carved out an interesting musical niche for yourself it appears. Has that been difficult? Have there been label people along the way who’ve pushed you to be more commercial?
FEINSTEIN: My career has been constant and that’s been a great gift because when I look at who was starting at the same time, a lot of them are not around anymore. I’m lucky I’m still doing what I love and I have new faces in my audience all the time. It’s an evolving audience and something I didn’t expect would happen. … There’s a core audience of the material and it doesn’t matter whether it’s mainstream or not in that most pop music is only a flash in the pan. It’s of the moment, then it fades. So to have the resonance, the life of this music to embrace, is really special and extraordinary.
BLADE: You and Terrence Flannery have been married several years now. How’s married life?
FEINSTEIN: It’s wonderful. My relationship with Terrence deepens in a way that is beautiful. All relationships take work and we work very hard at staying connected and growing in ways that will serve both of us and try to put good in the world. … Judge Judy, who is a friend, pushed us to get married when there was that window of opportunity the first time in California and the minute we did, it was life changing. … It’s been wonderful.
Michael Feinstein (Photo by Zach Dobson; courtesy Strathmore)
a&e features
New book celebrates 1970s dance music icons
‘A Night at the Disco’ features interviews with Donna Summer, Debbie Harry, more
If you’re a fan of 1970s-era dance music, don’t miss the irresistible new book by Christian John Wikane and Alice Harris, “A Night at the Disco,” which revisits more than 90 interviews conducted with some of the biggest names in pop culture.
“A Night at the Disco” (ACC Art Books) was published on March 24, and distributed by Simon & Schuster. It celebrates more than 100 artists who sparked a phenomenon in dance music from 1970-1979 and features excerpts from interviews with everyone from Donna Summer to Debbie Harry.
Lost City Books (2467 18th St., N.W.) will welcome author Christian John Wikane for a book signing and conversation about “A Night at the Disco” on Thursday, April 16 at 6 p.m. Details at lostcitybookstore.com. Bird in Hand Coffee & Books in Baltimore (11 E. 33rd St.) )will also host a Q&A with the author on Wednesday, April 15 at 6 p.m. Details at theivybookshop.com.
Below is an excerpt from “A Night at the Disco.”
“I’ll let in anyone who looks like they’ll make things fun.” Steve Rubell is guiding a New York Times reporter through Studio 54 as resident DJ Richie Kaczor dazzles the crowd with records by CHIC, Odyssey, and T-Connection. “Disco, that’s where the happy people go,” The Trammps sing as dancers spin and twirl underneath tubes of flashing lights. Seven months since Rubell and co-owner Ian Schrager opened Studio 54 in April 1977, it’s welcomed untold numbers of “happy people” … at least those lucky enough to pass through the doors.
“We were part of the chosen few,” says André De Shields, who immortalized the title role in The Wiz on Broadway at the time. “We could show up at Studio 54 and the doorman at the velvet stanchion would look over everyone and point to us from The Wiz to come in, that kind of thing.” As the lead vocalist in the GRAMMY-nominated Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, whose debut modernized big band sophistication for the discothèques, Cory Daye had carte blanche in the club. “The energy was like a New Year’s Eve party every night,” she says. “I would go up to the mezzanine and watch the mechanical light pillars go up and down, metallic confetti falling from the ceiling, the spoon and the moon. I was so fascinated and enamored by it.
“When a certain song came on, the people would just rush to the dance floor. There was no contact dancing — the hustle was pretty much on its way out — but it was just an amazing experience to see all the cultures together. It was a fusion of cultures, which described my life and my band, so I was right at home there.”
“Studio 54 was the place,” adds Linda Clifford. “Crazy parties. If you could think it, you would see it. It was like a circus. Just an amazing place to be. I worked 54 so many times. It was like a second home to me. The people there treated me so well. The crowd always seemed to enjoy my show. I always had a good time with them. That was the most important thing: making sure that they had fun.”
Well before Studio 54 opened, disco had become a business juggernaut. “A four billion dollar market and still growing,” Billboard announced in February 1977, with dance music offering more variety than ever. “There is no longer a single, readily identifiable disco beat, but a kaleidoscope of sounds that are melodic and danceable,” Tom Moulton told the magazine. In the clubs, records by veteran artists like Stevie Wonder and the Bee Gees were mixed in with a range of new acts like Grace Jones, Boney M., and The Ritchie Family, while everyone from ABBA to Marvin Gaye scored number one pop hits with songs that had club-centric storylines.
Beyond the charts, disco itself remained as idiosyncratic as ever, especially on several productions by Laurin Rinder and W. Michael Lewis, whose studio creations, El Coco (“Let’s Get It Together,” “Cocomotion”) and Le Pamplemousse (“Le Spank”), joined their own “Lust” from Seven Deadly Sins (1977) among the most tantalizing releases on AVI Records. Rinder & Lewis also produced acts for the newly hatched Butterfly Records in Los Angeles, where Saint Tropez (“On a Rien à Perdre”) and Tuxedo Junction (“Moonlight Serenade”) reflected the duo’s high gloss sound, spanning everything from European sophistication to a more literal translation of the ’40s sensibilities popularized by Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band.
12-inch singles had also grown as the preferred format to approximate the club music experience at home. Nearly a year after Atlantic Records introduced its series of promotional 12-inch singles for DJs, New York-based Salsoul Records released the industry’s first commercially available 12-inch single, “Ten Percent” by Double Exposure, in May 1976. A year later, T.K. Records was the first label to certify a gold record for a 12-inch single when Peter Brown’s “Do You Wanna Get Funky With Me” tallied one million sales.— Christian John Wikane
(From “A Night at the Disco” by Alice Harris & Christian John Wikane. Published by ACC Art Books.)
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
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Award-winning D.C. chef reaching new culinary heights
Anthony Jones of Marcus DC competing on ‘Top Chef’
In Anthony Jones’s kitchen, all sorts of flags fly, including his own. Executive chef at award-winning restaurant Marcus DC, Jones has reached culinary heights (James Beard Award semifinalist for Emerging Chef, anyone?), yet he’s just getting started.
Briefly stepping away from his award-winning station, Jones took a moment under a different set of lights. Recently, he temporarily gave up his post at the restaurant for a starring small-screen slot on the latest season of “Top Chef,” which debuted in March. (The show airs weekly on Bravo and Peacock).
Before his strategic slice-and-dice competition, however, Jones, who identifies as gay, draws from his deep DMV roots. In the years before “Top Chef” and the top chef spot at Marcus, he was born and raised in Sunderland, Md., in southern Maryland, near the Chesapeake.
Early memories were steeped in afternoons on boats with his dad bonding over fishing, and wandering the garden of his great-grandparents spread with fresh vegetables and a few hogs. “It was Southern, old-school ethics and upbringing,” he said. “Family and food went hand in hand.” Weekends meant grabbing bushels of crabs, dad and grandma would cook and crack them. Family members would host fish fries for extra cash. In this seafood-heavy youth, Jones managed time to sneak in episodes of the “OG” Japanese “Iron Chef” show, which helped inspire him to pursue a career in the kitchen.
Jones moved to D.C. after graduating from college, ending up at lauded Restaurant Eve, and met famed chef Marcus Samuelson, who brought him to Miami to be part of the opening team for Red Rooster Overtown. After three years, Jones moved back to D.C., where he ran Dirty Habit, reinventing and reimagining the menu, integrating West African flavors and ingredients.
Samuelson, however, wouldn’t let a talent like Jones stay away for too long. Pulling Jones back into his orbit, Samuelson elevated Jones to help him open his namesake restaurant Marcus DC, which has been named a top-five restaurant by the Washington Post. Since then, Jones has been nominated as a semifinalist for the RAMMYs Rising Culinary Star in 2026 and won the Eater DC’s Rising Chef award in 2025.
Samuelson’s Marcus is a tour de force interpreting the Black Diaspora on the plate, from the American South to West Africa, along with his signature “Swedopian” touches. Yet it’s Jones who has deeply informed the plate, elevating his own story to date. Marcus DC is primarily a seafood restaurant, which serves Jones well.
“Where I’m from is seafood heavy, and as I’ve progressed in my career, I’ve moved away from meat.” Veggies and fish are hero dishes. His own dish, Mel’s Crab Rice, was not only lauded by the Washington Post, but is framed by his youth carrying home the crustaceans from Mel’s crab truck. It’s a bowl of Carolina rice, layered with pickled okra, uni béarnaise, and crab. Jones also points to a dish on the opening menu, rockfish and brassica, paying respect to a landmark D.C. institution, Ben’s Chili Bowl. Jones reverse engineered a favorite bowl of chili that’s seafood instead of meat forward, leveraging octopus and rockfish along with different riffs of cauliflower: showing his intellectual, creative, and cultural sides.
While “Top Chef” is showing Jones’s spotlight side, he also lets his identity show at work. “In the kitchen, I make sure we’re inclusive. We don’t tolerate discrimination. Everyone that’s here should feel confident to express themselves. There are so many different flags in the kitchen.”
Jones says that he didn’t fully express his gay identity until fairly recently. He felt reluctant coming out to certain family members, “you’re scared to tell them about being different,” he says, and while that anxiety ate at him, “I’m lucky and fortunate to have unconditional love and that weight off my shoulders.”
Today, “I’m me all the time, Monday to Sunday. I’m honest with people, and my staff is honest with me.”
“Being a chef is hard,” he says, “and being a chef of color is even more difficult.”
Yet his LGBTQ identity is a juggling act, he says. “I need to keep that balance, because once someone finds out something about you, their opinion can change, whether you want it or not.”
Being on a whole season of TV cooking competition, however, might mean millions more might have an opinion of him (Jones has appeared on TV already, on an episode of “Chopped”). To prepare, he says, “I’ve just kept a level head. It’s just an honor to be on top chef with amazing people happy to be there.”
Plus, this season is set in the Carolinas, and Jones attended Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s a full story of my life, now a monumental moment for me.”
Jones also recently was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award. “JBF has been a north star, a dream for so long. I always had this goal on my wall.”
Being at the top spot at Marcus DC, making waves through his accolades, and cooking on Bravo means that Jones is highly visible. “I think that if someone has a similar background to me, and can see our story, trajectory, and success, they can have more ability to be themselves. This is my goal.”
Back at Marcus, Jones has plenty up his chef’s white’s sleeves. A new spring menu is in the works. He’ll be launching a new tasting menu “dining experience,” he says, and has plans to work on more events and collaborations with chefs and friends to bring in new talent and share the culinary wealth.
a&e features
Introducing the Torchbearers Awards honoring queer, trans women and nonbinary people
Meet the Legends and Illuminators lighting new paths
The Torchbearers Awards are more than recognition—they are a continuation of legacy. They honor the quiet architects of progress in our community: those who organize, advocate, build, and protect, often without fanfare but always with purpose. Rooted in a belief in intentional recognition, this honor names those who carry our movements forward—those who make room for others, who remind us that change is both generational and generative. In a time marked by uncertainty and challenge, these leaders push forward with courage, clarity, and an unwavering commitment to expanding opportunity and equity.
This year’s honorees reflect the full breadth of our community, spanning generations, backgrounds, identities, and industries. From Legends, with decades of leadership and having created pathways for others, to Illuminators, who are lighting new paths with creativity and innovation, each Torchbearer represents the power of intergenerational leadership and the strength found in our diversity. They are organizers, advocates, artists, policy leaders, healers, and changemakers whose lived experiences shape a shared vision for equity and liberation.
This award is our love letter to queer and trans women and nonbinary people who carry the flame when it would be easier to let it dim. To those who consistently show up, who use their voice and visibility and stand firm, often without recognition, so that others may live more freely and fully. The Torchbearers Awards celebrates not just what has been done, but the enduring spirit, responsibility, and collective care that ensure the work continues, and that the flame is always passed forward.
Co-Creators of the Torchbearers Awards: Shannon Alston, June Crenshaw, Heidi Ellis
Torchbearers Awards Advisory Board: Aditi Hardikar, Lesley Bryant, Jasmine Wilson-Bryant, Stephen Rutgers
ILLUMINATOR AWARDEES
- Representative Sharice Davids (she/her), (D, KS-03)
— U.S. House of Representatives - Greisa Martinez Rosas (she/her/ella)
— Executive Director, United We Dream - Paola Ramos (she/her)
— Journalist & Correspondent - Meagan A. Fitzgerald (she/her)
— Journalist & Correspondent - Jessica L. Lewis (she/her)
— Founder / Producer, Play Play DC - Savannah Wade (she/her)
— Founder, OAR Agency - Suhad Babaa (she/her)
— Filmmaker/ Former Executive Director of Just Vision - Ashlee Davis (she/her)
— Global Head of Inclusive Outcomes, Ancestry - Jazmine Hughes (she/her)
— Journalist and Former Editor at New York Times Magazine - Queen Adesuyi (they/she)
— Policy Advisor & Organizer, ReFrame Health & Justice - Michele Rayner, Esq. (she/her)
— Civil Rights Attorney, State Representative (Florida House of Representatives) - Gaby Vincent (she/her)
— Sports/Cultural Commentator and Community Leader - Jenny Nguyen (she/her)
— Founder & Owner, The Sports Bra - Denice Frohman (she/her)
— Independent Artist, Poet / Performer - Vida Rangel (she/her)
— Founder, Our Trans Capital - Roxanne Anderson (they/them)
— Executive Director, Our Space - Ann Marie Gothard (she/her)
— Co-Founder & President, Pride Live (Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center) - Diana Rodriquez (she/her)
— Co-Founder & CEO, Pride Live (Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center) - Wendi Cooper (she/her)
— Founder / Executive Director, Transcending Women - Toya Matthews (she/her)
— City of San Antonio, Texas - Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones (she/her)
— Sports/Cultural Commentator and Community Leader - Charity Blackwell (she/her)
— Poet, LGBTQ Advocate & Community Leader - Wilhelmina Indermaur (she/her)
— Director of Communications, Tyler Clementi Foundation - Em Chadwick (she/her)
— CMO, For Them & Autostraddle - Kylo Freeman (they/he)
— CEO, For Them & Autostraddle
LEGEND AWARDEES
- Sheila Alexander-Reid (she/her)
— Executive Director, PHL Diversity, Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau - Cassandra Cantave Burton (she/her)
— Interim Director of Thought Leadership & Senior Research Advisor, AARP - leigh h. mosley (she/her)
— Photographer / Educator, PhotoFlo Photography - Jenn M. Jackson, PhD (they/them)
— Assistant Professor of Political Science; Author & Columnist, Syracuse University - Jordyn White (she/her)
— COO, Washington Prodigy / VP of Leadership Development & Research, HRC Foundation - AJ Hikes (they/them)
— Deputy Executive Director, ACLU - RaeShanda Lias (she/her)
— Digital Creator, RL Lockhart - Donna Payne-Hardy (she/her)
— Educator, EEO Specialist, Founder of NBJC, Former Leader at the Human Rights Campaign - Courtney R. Snowden (she/her)
— Principal, Blueprint Strategy Group - Gaye Adegbalola (she/her)
— Musician & Activist, Musician / Inductee of the Blues Hall of Fame - Cheryl A. Head (she/her)
— Independent Author, Novelist (Crime Fiction) - Letitia Gomez (she/her)
— The American LGBTQ+ Museum, Board Chair - Lynne Brown (she/her)
— Publisher, Washington Blade - Shay Franco-Clausen (She/Her/Ella/Queen)
— Political Strategist and Organizer - Melissa L. Bradley (she/her)
— Founder & Managing Partner, New Majority Ventures - Meghann Burke (she/her)
— Executive Director, NWSL Players Association - Victoria Kirby York, MPA (she/they)
— Director of Public Policy & Programs, National Black Justice Collective - Joli Angel Robinson (she/her)
— CEO, Center on Halsted - Jeannine Frisby LaRue (she/her)
— CEO, Moxie Strategies - Alice Wu (she/her)
— Film Director (Saving Face, The Half of It) / Screenwriter - Storme Webber (she/her)
— Interdisciplinary Artist / Educator, University of Washington - Kim Stone
— CEO of the Washington Spirit, Washington Spirit - Mickalene Thomas
— American Visual Artist, Mickalene Thomas Studio - Erika Lorshbough (any/they/she)
— Executive Director, interACT - J. Gia Loving (she/ella)
— Co-Executive Director, GSA Network
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