Feature Article

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE SINATRA

He performs weekly to packed houses in both Orlando and Beverly Hills.
Hotelier, Merv Griffin calls him "one of the great singers of all time."
Michael Andrew shares the secret to being a Swingerhead.
By Judy Chamberlain

Michael Andrew is a rarity not seen for nearly 40 years: a bandleader, singer, and quintessential showman. Understandably, Andrew is also a hot property. The energetic performer currently splits his time between fronting Swingerhead in Orlando, Florida, and The Coconut Club Orchestra in Beverly Hills, California. What's more, he was recently featured in the movie Heartbreakers, in which he plays a bandleader not unlike himself. The entertainment industry has its eye on Michael, and he's looking right back. He talks the talk, walks the walk, and has the "look," so it's not surprising that this modern day crooner is, in the words once sung by Bing Crosby, "goin' Hollywood."

With his slicked back hair, lounge lizard wardrobe and enormous stage presence, Andrew displays the charisma one needs to be a front man. We've seen it before, in legendary bandleaders who heard the call of Tinsletown, like Glenn Miller and Desi Arnaz. Although seemingly dissimilar, these great performers shared a common trait. They had personality, and Andrew has it in spades.

It's perhaps not surprising that his music tastes hearken back to an earlier era. Andrew, has been enamored of swing since he first started listening to records as a tot. Popular tastes change, but good music is good music. Whether performing his own compositions, like "The Lady With The Big Cigar," or paying homage to the past as he does on the soundtrack of Heartbreakers, this dashing dynamo is committed to keeping the sound of swing alive.

At his regular Saturday night gig at Merv Griffin's Coconut Club in Beverly Hills, Andrew fronts the house band ably, with a sure knowledge of what people want to hear. Putting is "right down the middle," playing medium-tempo tunes ideal for dancing with lyrics everybody can understand, Andrew proves that the genre is not only alive and well, but still evolving.

ATOMIC reporter Judy Chamberlain met with Michael Andrew during a recent stopover in L.A. to learn more about his musical influences and his continued success.

JC: How old were you when you started listening to standards?
MA: I was probably too young to even remember how old I was. I used to lip synch to my parents' old records, and my favorite one to lip synch to was a recording they had of The Four Freshman. I just couldn't get enough of that, and I listened to those tracks over and over. The Four Freshman and Five Trumpets. I still listen to it. I really dug it, and I didn't even know why. I didn't know what to call that kind of music until I got into college and people said, 'Oh, you like music that swings; you like swing stuff.' "East Street" and "Got A Date With An Angel" were two of my favorites. Also, when I was young, I used to go around singing things that were in my parents' collection, the Sammy Davis and Sinatra stuff and even sing-along things from the Mitch Miller albums. We'd go on vacation and sing in the car all the way from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to their vacation home in Jupiter, Florida. We listened to music on 8-tracks! They had a really diverse record collection, which I didn't know at the time was called "standards." They were just great sings. And I was always trying to imitate what I saw in the old movies. I liked to alter my clothes so I could look like, at different times, The Blues Brothers, Bobby Darin and others I admired.

JC: Do you listen to the new Four Freshman?
MA: I've heard them and they're good. But nothing touches the original sound, in which the whole became greater than the sum of the parts of the individual singers.

JC: It's that way with great bands, too, isn't it?
MA: Totally. And, you know, The Four Freshman were a band, too. When they started out, the accompanied themselves, played all the instruments themselves. They may have cut the tracks separately - I'm not sure. Stan Kenton, who had been told by an associate that the group sounded, with just four voices, a lot like his entire band, went up to them and said, "You're right, they do sound like us." They actually sang like a real sax section.

JC: What do you look for when you hire musicians for your band Swingerhead?
MA: We have a distinct sound. I try to get a very aggressive horn section. I emphasize the vocals, being a singer, but I wanted the sound of a big band even though we are not huge. In order to do this, I had to figure out a few tricks to make this band sound huge, so people wouldn't say, "It's nothing like a big band." The trumpet player has to be a very strong lead player and be equally good at taking solos. He has to be able to lead the horn section with his phrasing. And the trombone player is functioning as many different things. Unfortunately, for him, he is rarely just able to sound like a trombone, because often his parts are written as if he is a second trumpet player, supporting the lead trumpet. The alto sax player, who also doubles on tenor, sometimes functions the way a lead alto does in a big band. Bit more often than not, in my band, that instrument is a supportive voice to the lead trumpet the way a saxophone player or one of the trumpets would function in the shout chorus of a big band. The second sax is a tenor who doubles on baritone. The secret to getting a large sound from the horns is to have a very strong bari sax player with a big sound and excellent intonation. Royal Crown Revue is a good example of a band that does that. The overtones produced by the bari sax fill in a lot of missing notes that we;re used to hearing in a big band horn section. The only way you're going to get that in a smaller band is if the guy is playing with a lot of power and excellent intonation. Actually, every horn player has got to play with a lot of power in order to be able to play in my band or they'll just be lost in the section.

JC: What's your philosophy regarding the rhythm players?
MA: Much simpler than the horns, because I'm not trying to imitate something we're not. I model the sound of my rhythm section to the sound of the Basie band. The way Count Basie played piano, or George Shearing. I love that. The piano player has room in my band to be a soloist and a stylist, too. He has the most freedom of anyone in the rhythm section, because he's playing fills and he's not tied in to a restrictive pulse the way the other rhythm players are. One of the things I think gets lost with younger players today is the ability to have the rhythm sections swing hard during two-beat passages. I'm always looking for young players who are interested in this genre. They're rare. Until I was about 28, I was always the youngest guy in the band. It wasn't until I left The Rainbow Room five years ago, that the swing thing became more popular and I started putting together bands to please younger audiences and looking for younger players who had the energy to do the touring. I encourage them all to listen to Count Basie, George Shearing and the great players of the past.

JC: How old were you when you first had a band?
MA: I had a combo in college, just a trio. I was 20. I sang, and we had a piano player who played key bass and a drummer. We did standards. Then I worked on ships using their house bands for a few years. I put together my first 10-piece in Orlando, using a couple dozen charts I had accumulated from doing shows on the cruise ships.

JC: You've written some contemporary swing numbers. How much of your own stuff do you play and how much of what you do is based on standards?
MA: At The Coconut Club, they respond well to standards. It's '40s, '50s and '60s, mixed up and a little retro. Swingerhead shows include more original material.

JC: You once wrote and produced a show that featured a character called "Mickey Swingerhead." When did you dream up Mickey?
MA: People on the cruise ships always called me Mickey. When I was at The Rainbow Room, from 1994 to 1996, I started to feel the pressure of being restricted as far as how much we could swing; they wanted a mostly two-beat feel for the guests, who were mostly 'society' dancers. I wanted to write a show, and at the time I was influenced by the retro lounge music that was in vogue then and is now more of an underground thing. Esquivel was a major influence, and some of the other 1950s mondo exotica lounge bandleaders, like Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman and Les Baxter. Those bandleaders influenced the music for the show. I also really dig 1950s science fiction B-movies, so that's the style of the play I created for the show that stars Mickey Swingerhead ("Mickey Swingerhead and the Earthgirls"). The show is set in outer space, in the future, in a world where swing music is prohibited. The band is from another time and place. I did the show instead of a revival of Pal Joey, which is what was originally suggested to me.

JC: Do you do this show anymore?
MA: No, but I'd love to. It's very expensive to produce, and it needs five very strong actors and a live band of about five people.

JC: Maybe someone will decide to make it into a movie? Running a band is expensive, too. Is it what you plan to do forever?
MA: A few years ago, Swingerhead was playing six nights a week and I never saw myself doing that. Singing, even, is only one aspect of what I;ve wanted to do as an actor, entertainer and performer. I've had to put a lot of things off to keep that band working so much. We have out steady gig every Saturday at The Coconut Club, and I've really cut back on the number of performances we do with Swingerhead. I have to go where my heart is, and my heart is not strictly with producing a band. I'd like to get involved with movies, as a creator. Some people love running a band, but I know there are other things I am meant to do. I love doing the band, but it's just one project. Each of my projects, hopefully, will keep growing and leading into other things. I'm currently preparing a demo CD to get out to movie music people of things I have done for movies, scores I have done for short films and with movie scores in mind. When I get involved with another band, it is because I feel they have material that could work for movies. And I am also doing more work singing with symphony orchestras, which is very enjoyable for me.

JC: What would you like to be remembered for, when it comes to great achievements?
MA: I'd like to put my mark on affecting the general quality of entertainment overall. The standards of entertainment have deteriorated over the years, and I'd like to help bring the standards back up to a better level of sophistication. Who could argue with the movies of the '40s and '50s? Or having dinner in a Las Vegas lounge and seeing a great star perform? Ninety percent of what is going on in live entertainment today is Top 40 cover music. But I do give people like Madonna a lot of credit. She's an original and in her own way she is trying to do elements of glamour. We need to see glamour come back. My generation and the generation after me, what are we going to listen to when we are in retirement homes? Timeless entertainment, that's what I want to help give the world. I want to influence a new benchmark for a higher standard.