In the mid-20th century, pianist Oscar Levant (1906 –1972) was a pre-digital version of a social media star – a ubiquitous, witty presence on American TV and radio, and films. He was also a bestselling author, radio game show panelist, and a talk show host. As a concert pianist, his Gershwin performances, especially a 1945 version of the “Rhapsody in Blue”, were the best-selling classical records in America. But, Levant was a troubled figure off-camera and out of the limelight. He’s the subject of a mammoth eight-volume box set called Rhapsody in Blue: The Extraordinary Life of Oscar Levant, which features never-before-heard recordings and an essay by Michael Feinstein, perhaps our leading curator of the American songbook.

Michael Feinstein joins John Schaefer to present “hors d’oeuvres” from both his personal archives and the box set, everything from Gershwin, to J.S. Bach, to Levant’s own compositions and trippy songs with subversive dissonances. Feinstein also tells tales from Oscar Levant’s career, full of admiration for his acerbic wit and his many fascination with the way he could be taken seriously as both a classical pianist and a film star. Despite debilitating eccentricities and addictions, and the loss of coordination in his hands, Levant was able to regularly appear as a game show panelist on TV shows, publish as an author and host a talk show. Feinstein concludes by saying that there is likely five or six more hours of these never-before-heard recordings of acerbic comedian and real-life piano prodigy Oscar Levant.  -Caryn Havlik