Credit the man who knows what he wants and devotes himself, with single-minded passion, to getting it. Credit the man who knows, from a very young age, that this is it, this is what I am meant to be, convention be damned. Thus, credit Michael Feinstein, who just digs the Great American Songbook, and has from his earliest years. (Is it safe to say at this point, now, more than thirty years into his career, that Feinstein has pretty much become synonymous with the Songbook? That repertoire and that style of singing, and the fact that Feinstein’s never really diverted from that path – I think the case can be made. But that’s just a box, so never mind.) At any rate, Feinstein’s been worshiping at the altar of the Gershwins and Bing Crosby and Sinatra since he was knocking about in swaddling clothes, almost, and he’s honed those chops of his to a razor’s edge. And yet there’s something smooth and comforting about him, Michael Feinstein, out there carrying the torch for the Great American Songbook in concert halls and cabarets all throughout America. He lays it down tomorrow night at the State Theatre in New Brunswick. (FULL ARTICLE: Peter Filichia, Newark Star-Ledger)