Celebrating George Gershwin’s centenary was the main motivation behind this album of the maestro’s songs performed by Michael Feinstein. Not that the singer would need much motivation to record this music, nor indeed the words of Ira Gershwin, with whom Feinstein enjoyed a remarkable working relationship during the lyricist’s later years, for Feinstein is devoted to the genre and is one of the great stalwarts defending the integrity of the Gershwin brothers’ musical legacy.

Feinstein has already committed to print the story of his fortuitous meeting with Ira and subsequent work with him in his autobiography ‘Nice Work If You Can Get It’. There’s little doubt, therefore, that recording these songs was very much a work of love and source of deep pleasure to Feinstein. There’s almost as much satisfaction for the listener too, fortunately, for this album offers exquisite examples of Gershwin’s work sung by a gifted performer and supported sympathetically by the latest recording techniques. 100 years later, George Gershwin sounds as fresh and relevant as ever.

Feinstein’s warm, rich voice fills the foreground of each recording and the studio production brings out the singer’s finely honed ability to find subtle nuances in the lyrics and add colour to his voice so that he is able to deliver authentic interpretations which manage to be both familiar and original. The pace of most tracks is slow and easy; indeed a curious feature of the album is the way in which Feinstein seems to place his voice further and further back over the course of the first seven tracks, bringing a husky tone to the beautiful ‘Lonely Boy’ that enfolds the listener and achieves a sense of intimacy which can be notoriously difficult to convey in recorded material.

‘Shall We Dance’, which follows, is about as up-tempo as things get, though ironically this rendition is a slow version of the song itself. Overall, therefore, each song enhances a romantic, wistful mood, though there are lighter moments, notably in ‘Oh Gee! Oh Joy!’ and ‘Delishious’.

The album closes strongly, with a very contemporary treatment of ‘Soon’ that points the way for singers looking for new ways to perform the old standards without being derivative or ignoring the fact that times and technology have changed since these songs were written.

And finally, George himself, thanks to a mixture of the old technology of piano rolls and the latest advances in digital recording, accompanies Michael in the Gershwin song which outsold all others, ‘Swanee’. A point at which Michael and George, 20’s and 90’s, classic and new, combine with consummate artistry to bring to a close not just an album but also an era. Nice work. Get it if you can.