San Francisco’s Jonathan Poretz is a talented San Francisco singer. Before that he was a New York singer, who, at the age of 4 was given a mic and coerced into singing The Twist, a la Chubby Checkers, to accompany his cousin at a dance recital. He caught the bug. He sang in the school choir and had his own band at the age of 13. Jonathan’s love for and appreciation of his grandparents and parents (Arthur and Florence) is not only joyful but a lesson in the success that family love can enable. When it comes to parental influence, he says his mother is the Frank Sinatra and his father the Mel Tormé. Although Jonathan is described as having a style that blends Sinatra, Tormé, Bennet and Darrin, truth be told, his style is all his delightful own. This is a man who is filled with love and with music, and you can hear one in the other. There is contagious enthusiasm in his voice as he talks about his family and his music.
His love letter? Plural, really. For starters his dad, but there are others to follow. When I heard the name of Jonathan’s new show, Songs From My Father, the Art of My Music, to be done on his father’s birthday, I reached for the kleenex.