Tony Bennett's Latest

I worked hard on this review, hoping to be the first to post on Amazon. Of course, this morning, there were three other reviews, that were like, "Hey this is a good recording". So I may not be first, but you can judge if I'm best. Here's the review, in its entirety:

Shadows of Ella, hints of Evans, and all the things Tony Bennett is

Last fall, Tony Bennett released a fantastic vocal jazz record together with Lady Gaga, Cheek to Cheek. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Lady Gaga said that she loved working with Tony Bennett, loved jazz, and that she planned to record “one jazz record a year, forever”. One year to the day later, Lady Gaga’s next jazz album is nowhere in sight. Instead, we have Tony Bennett, the octogenarian king of jazz, who basically reinvented the concept of the duet with his two duets albums, stretched that work with a pop diva, and now, much in the mold of his inimitable work with Bill Evans many years ago, we find him paired with one of today’s premier jazz pianists, Bill Charlap. And, as Tony has become one of the defining masters of the American songbook, he stays close to home by taking on a number of standards by Jerome Kern. The result is an eminently listenable, fascinating jazz record.

 

Understated, but classy cover

One big difference between this Bennett-Charlap recording and the Bennett-Evans recordings is that this time, they went ahead and used a full rhythm section on a number of the songs. With Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington on drums, the sound has more of a club atmosphere and less of the intimacy of the pure duets with Evans. Another difference is Bill calls in his life partner and fellow jazz pianist Renee Rosnes to do some fabulous piano duet work on four of the tunes. (As a jazz pianist, those tunes really stood out for me.) Throughout, the solos of Charlap tend to be more evenly constructed and hone closer to the original songs, especially so as each song is kept (for the most part) close to or under the classic three minutes twenty seconds time frame. The selection of songs is solid and includes all the “standard” standards: Yesterdays, All the Things You Are, The Song is You, and even I Won’t Dance, which Tony may have done simply because it was still fresh in his repertoire from last year’s Lady Gaga recording.

"Benedetto" is Tony's real name. Yes, this is his sketch. 

Tony sounds great, and the recording is very clean. (It was produced by Tony’s son, Dae Bennett and Bill Charlap, with another son, Danny Bennett, as executive producer.) Charlap is absolutely on top of his game here, carrying each tune along until it’s time to solo, cleverly breaking and shifting the solo while keeping the feel, then throwing it underhand back to Tony so Bennett can knock it out to the finish. It’s a formula that Tony has stuck with for five decades, and I personally am glad that he decided to not try and change it up. The CD booklet includes full liner notes and a nice background essay/exposition by WSJ columnist and jazz writer Will Friedwald. There are plenty of calm photos and a portrait of Jerome Kern to fill out the booklet.

One of the best albums to come out last year.

I don’t know how much longer Tony is going to be with us, but I hope it’s a long time and I hope he keeps singing, because treasures like this five star vocal jazz album are few and far between. Maybe he will do like Ella did with Norman Granz and work through some of the songbooks of some of the other great American composers. And if he keeps Charlap, his trio and Rosnes along for the ride, there will be lots more great music to come.

I’ll also keep my eyes open for that next Lady Gaga record, while I’m monitoring the airwaves.

Entranced by Bewitched

Last week, while in the throes of my cold, I had time but not much energy, so I passed some of the day I took off work listening to jazz music with my Real Book close by. Now, while it is true that I listen to jazz everyday, somewhere on the order of two hours a day no matter what, it is rare that I actually sit down and the only activity I'm engaged in is listening to music. So last week, when I did that, I found it much more of a treat than usual. I pulled out Ella Fitzgerald singing Rodgers and Hart, simply because so many of those songs show up in the Real Book. One that stuck in my brain, because I paid attention to the (very risque for the time) lyrics, was Bewitched. When I took a look at the chart, I found it contained a lot of diminished seventh chords. Well I'll be. I'd just spent two or three weeks working on diminshed chords, but never attempted a song that was as rich in them as Bewitched is. So, I started to play it.

It was a lot harder than I thought, but as is generally the case with standards from the Real Book, I pretty much had it down in two or three days. (Mind you, "having it down" means I can play the melody line with a minimum of mistakes while playing simple chords in rhythm underneath - nothing fancy.) I thought it would be a good song to trot out at my lesson this week, so I did. Imagine my surprise when the instructor says it's one of his favorite songs. He knew how to do a lot of different things with it, and showed me most of them, and so, forty minutes of my half hour (heh-heh) music lesson was Bewitched.

Of course, I can't imitate all of my instructor's ideas and can attempt maybe only a few of the licks he showed me, maybe or maybe not being able to incorporate them into the song by next week, but, I'm liking the song more and more as it opens itself up to me, little by little. Yeah, it may be simplistic, but jazz continually surprises and inspires. What else can a pianist, who hasn't even been taking lessons for one year yet, hope for?

First Listing

Here are my first listings on the Yoity Tot CD List. If you want to find out more about what I think about these CD's than just the brief comments I have below, I suggest you visit my profile on Amazon and browse through my reviews there. Or, of course, you can always drop me a comment or e-mail asking for some exposition, and I'll be happy to provide you with some.

Jazz In Silhouette is, without a doubt, my most frequently listened to CD. Since the very day I bought it, it has always been in close range and when I don't know what else to listen to, this is one that I can turn to and be happy I did. It's a wonder I haven't bought more Sun Ra CD's since, but I'm sure I will soon.

Saxophone Colossus was in the rotation at my poker game last night, and everyone enjoyed it when it came on, including me. One of my guests even knew some of the "Mack the Knife" lyrics and rattled them off reasonably in time when "Moritat" was playing.

Afro-Cuban is a recent acquisition that impressed me right out of the box. It just has so much going for it, without being an overly "ethnic" flavored CD. Just great jazz.

The Billy Taylor Trio's self titled work is one of those overlooked, often forgotten CD's, for some reason, but I just never grow tired of it. The song selection is really good, having a mix of familiar and not so familiar works, but the sound is just really satisfying. Another reliable CD that I pull off the shelf with a good bit of regularity.

Somethin' Else by Cannonball Adderley features Miles Davis and another great selection of songs. This is a nice CD to have for when you are in the mood for Miles Davis but don't want to put on Kind of Blue because you are in an upbeat mood. It really sizzles.

Kind of Blue is arguably the greatest jazz recording of all time. There are some I listen to more, but it's hard to say anything is better than this CD. It really turned me back toward the heart of jazz. Bluesy, passionate, "listen so you won't be disappointed later" kind of music that you feel inside.

The Cole Porter Songbook sung by Ella Fitzgerald was a turning point in vocal jazz because it brought together one of the era's greatest (if not THE greatest) female vocalists with probably the quintessential American song writer of the last century. There are few people who can listen to a Cole Porter song and not feel some reverie and respect for his work, and when Ella sings with the high quality orchestras assembled by Norman Granz (and others), the result is nothing short of jazz history.

Portrait in Jazz by Bill Evans is probably not his best work, but it has a selection of songs on it that I really like. "Witchcraft" and "Someday My Prince Will Come" stay with you a long time after you listen to Bill snap them to attention and make them swing. (Plus he's got Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian behind him, what became the model of jazz trios for years to come.)

And finally (for now), Have a Little Faith by Bill Frisell gets in for some amazing guitar work that doesn't sound like guitar, plus his wonderful takes on Bob Dylan ("Just Like A Woman"), Madonna ("Live to Tell") and Aaron Copland ("Billy the Kid").

Oh crap, and I almost forgot, The Sidewinder by Lee Morgan. Pick me up, spin me around, and play me some blue notes! Yet another CD I can put on anytime and never be disappointed or second guess my selection.

Sun (Ra) Never Sets

Here in north Alabama, we had covers, tarps, and plastic drop cloths draped over all our plants in anticipation of a nasty freeze last night. (It could have happened the night before, but didn't quite get cold enough.) It's almost as if the sun has gone away. For no particular reason not completed unrelated to that, I've been listening to three great, great, great recordings this weekend, one of which is Jazz in Silhouette by Sun Ra and his Arkestra. Good gosh, that is a great CD. Everytime I listen to it, I hear something I didn't hear before, and I'm just enthralled. It's one of those recordings where, you stop and listen, then shake your head and laugh out loud.

In fact, I didn't get to listen to all of it yesterday before dinner ended and we turned on a movie, so at bedtime, I pulled my boom box into the bedroom, threw on my headphones, and listened to it as I fell asleep. I used to do this quite a lot when I was younger: listen to music while falling asleep. Last night, though, I was so pooped out after pulling down a sick oak tree that I don't think I stayed awake even through the end of the first song. Sleeping on my back, I ended up drying out my throat and that had some other nasty consequences which I won't go into here, but I think I might be able to get used to this method of listening to music.

Sunday afternoon I almost fell asleep while listening to Ella Fitzgerald sing the Duke Ellington songbook. I had my Real Book out and looked at the music as she sang, but like I said, pulling down a tree all afternoon and drinking wine pretty steadily after that, I got sweetly mellow and almost fell asleep before dinner. Ella can have that effect. But anyway, some of the renderings of Duke's songs were impossibly imaginative and richly textured. There is just so much depth to his music and a singer like Ella is deft at plumbing it all the way. I should have jumped over to the piano to try some of her phrasings, but, I felt better lulling myself to that theta-wave pre-sleep instead.

Finally, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue rounded out my weekend listening trio, mainly because I'm working on All Blues, which is going quite well, too, thank you very much. There isn't anything that needs to be added to the commentary of arguably the greatest jazz recording of all time. I know anytime I put it on, I'll feel better before long, even in the face of an $8000 tax bill. KOB and jazz in general give me hope, and Sun Ra makes for a brighter everything.

Maybe it's time for me to add some more Sun Ra to my collection...

That was quick.

That was quick: Well, I had pretty much made up my mind I was going to go ahead and buy the Ella Fitzgerald complete songbooks. My logic, most of which I outlined before in the "dilemma" entry, was reinforced by 30-out-of-30 5-star reviews on amazon and Mrs. S's general attitude that collectible sets of music and movies are worth having, if it's really what we want. The more I looked through The Real Book and the more I thought about my piano playing, the more I thought how useful it would be to have at least one version of every song written by guys like Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer, Jerome Kern, etc. I had basically resolved to buy it, and being able to get the set brand new for $112 on a music web-site, I thought the price was right, especially knowing that most of the amazon reviewers who gave the set 5-stars mentioned it was worth what they paid, even when they probably paid $200 or more for it. So, it was incredibly coincidental to find a brand new set on ebay, that when I found it, was at $51 with only about a half day left. It being a weekday, and the CD set not being exactly mainstream, I felt pretty confident I could get the new set at a price that would even be discounted compared to the club price. Well, I was right, and I ended up spending only $83 for the set, including shipping (just a little over $5 per disc). I couldn't be happier. Now, I'm just going to go through my real book and figure out how many songs I don't have a recorded version of yet but will have after the set arrives. Then I can chart a course for building my repertoire.