Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga - 2014

With a new album pairing Tony Bennett and Diana Krall, along with Bill Charlap and his trio in support, it seems a good time to post this review, of Tony's work with Lady Gaga, which was released four years to the day before the upcoming album. 

Nothing short of thrilling

I’m a big Tony Bennett fan and I’ve really admired the way he’s reinvented himself on an almost continuous basis, starting with the epic MTV Unplugged CD in the early ‘90’s. Of course, the duets albums have also been an incredible sensation, to the point where even other singers will compose laments to not doing a duet with Mr. Bennett (Kevin Mahogany Old New Borrowed and the Blues). My awareness of Lady Gaga and her work was, until this recording, limited to a picture of her in a meat dress and the song “Poker Face”, which I think I heard once. And until the Wall Street Journal wrote about this recording, as much as I like Tony Bennett, I had no intention of purchasing this. But, if the Wall Street Journal tells you a pop star you have no interest in has serious jazz chops when singing with a jazz legend like Tony Bennett, you pay attention and buy the recording.

And am I ever glad I did. I absolutely love what Tony and Lady have done with this collection of standards. They’ve literally made the songs their own, sung their hearts out, and ended up with what is arguably one of the best vocal jazz albums to come out in years, if not decades. The arrangements are all swinging and most use a commanding big band format that is positively scintillating. On top of that, they’ve chosen a great selection of songs that encompasses all the highlights of the American songbook: Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, a couple by Duke Ellington,  and a healthy sampling of the Gershwins, among others. Tony and Lady each take two solos, allowing them to sort of put their individual stamp on the recording, with Lady’s soulful rendering of Billy Strayhorn’s Lush Life narrowly edging out Tony’s Sophisticated Lady for top solo honors. But honestly, the duets are what this is all about. Tony sings everything pretty straight while solidly swinging, with his usual panache at lyrical timing and thoughtful song rendering, and Lady uses her voice to accent each piece. Whether she needs a thumping vibrato or a soft, still tone, she delivers when and where needed, and the songs’ meaning and feel just jump from the speakers. Even when she’s only speaking a playful line, as in Goody Goody: “I told you, I’m not a goody, I’m a baddy,” you can almost see her smile and wink as Tony proceeds to call her “rascal, you”. I could go on about the other songs that I found impressive, from the understated elegance of “Nature Boy” to the rousing sendoff of “It Don’t Mean a Thing”, but I’ll just go with the old cliché and say: there isn’t a bad track on this recording. The mixing and sound is flawless, and the CD comes with a generous fold out photo montage on one side and song-by-song musicians’ rosters on the other. (Jazz aficionados – like me – will appreciate being able to look up some of the other performers.)

I can’t say enough about this recording. It excites me, inspires me, calms me and soothes me, thrills me, kills me. It makes my love for jazz grow and what do you know? It made me a Lady Gaga fan. According to the Wall Street Journal, Lady is going to release one jazz album a year “forever”. I for one can’t wait, but I hope this isn’t the end of the collaboration between these two superlative artists. I’ll be even happier if Lady shows up as a special unannounced guest performer at the Tony Bennett concert in Nashville in December (that I already have tickets for), but even if she doesn’t, I still have this stunningly excellent CD to keep my heart pounding. It’s just phenomenal and a complete five star no brainer.

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.

What I learned by watching the exact same Tony Bennett concert twice in two nights (Part 2)

If you missed part 1, here it is

Some other things I learned, kind of:

4) If you can sing a song in a four story performance hall that seats 1856 people, without a microphone and still fill the place with sound at the age of 88, you must be Tony Bennett

"Fly Me To The Moon", with guitar, without microphone. Unbelievable.

I don’t think anybody else 88 years or older anywhere can do that. It’s like a Guinness Book level feat, if you think about it.

5) The best seat in the house is the front row

This will be my space for the next two hours, thank you very much. Also, note the person with the black hair and white shirt at the very upper left. That was Mrs. S's seat on Friday night.

You can stretch out your legs (and arms, and hips, and anything else you want). You can walk right up to the stage and lean out over it and pretend you fell off the stage and are trying to climb back on. You can talk to the cello and violin players. You can hear the best. You can see the best. People think you’re important. People know you’re a patron. The ushers remember you and don’t bother you about anything. Pure and simple: If you are not in the front row, you might have good seats, but you don’t have the best seats. Period.

No, really, I'm with the band!

This is the view from our box on Friday night. Same price as front row, waaaayyyy different view.

6) The technology cannot be stopped and everyone has it in their pockets. Soon, there will be no attempt at preventing people from photographing at concerts.

View from front row on Thursday night. Yep, that's better

Note to performers everywhere, I have a high resolution camera, video recorder, and sound recorder. It’s right here, in my pocket. If you tell me I can’t take your picture, I won’t. I actually believe in the rules that keep our society livable. If you tell me I can take photos without flash, then don’t tell me I can only take photos when the house lights are up. And if you aren’t going to stop the people in the third balcony above the stage (who are actually using flash), then guess what? You’re screwed and I’m probably going to take your picture from the front row, regardless of announcements, warnings printed on tickets, or anything else. And anyway, Mrs. S is the concert photographer. I’m going to just sit here and enjoy the show. It’s her you have to worry about. (What I mean is, pretty soon, the entire planet is going to be continually photographed, for any or no reason. Performers need to embrace the technology and let their fans take photos. That’s it.)

What I learned by watching the exact same Tony Bennett concert twice in two nights (Part 1)

It’s not much, but, here goes.

1) The program in the program may or may not be the actual program

My personal concert program always includes a cocktail and wine prior to the show.

The program for the Tony Bennett concert included four pieces by the Nashville Symphony, and those were correct. For Tony’s portion, it said “Selections will be called from the stage”, which is standard jazz lingo for, “We’ll tell you what we’ll play, just as soon as we decide.” The program also listed “Featuring special guest Antonia Bennett”, who is Tony’s up-and-coming daughter. When she wasn’t there on Thursday night, I was sure she’d be there Friday. But no. Friday’s show was the exact same as Thursday’s, mistakes and all. We thought about going to the box office, telling them we came to see Antonia, not Tony, and we want our money back. Then we decided we didn’t want anyone to laugh at us that much, and even more, we didn’t want anybody to think we like Antonia Bennett better than her dad.

2) If you don’t practice out the mistakes, the mistakes don’t go away

The man himself. If you think the crowd didn't go absolutely bananas when this octogenarian strode purposefully to center stage,  you obviously don't appreciate what it means to be in the same room with a living legend. And note the big video screen prompter tilted on the front speaker. That's the one he didn't pay any attention to.

First of all, I’m not bemoaning the fact that an 88-year old guy forgot a few words of a few lines of songs he doesn’t sing all that much. And to be fair, lots of singers much younger use prompts and earphones and whatnot to help their singing and lyrical comprehension. And let’s also be clear: Tony doesn’t need any help with the songs he’s been singing for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years. He’s got those. But on Thursday night, when he sang “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with “..friends who are near to us, will be dear to us, once more”, you could see him looking at the prompter, trying to squint it out above the spotlight, and then look around to see if the audience caught the problem, and then (no doubt), he thought, (correctly) “they didn’t notice, and if they did, they didn’t care”. But when he made the exact same mistake on Friday, well folks, I’m sorry to call BS on a legend, but that’s just sloppy. 

3) It must be EXTREMELY hard to play the same exact set, night after night

One line that Tony Bennett can never use: "Stop me if you've heard this one before." He sings any song that made him a bajillion dollars at some point in his career, and that's like a bajillion songs.

And by extremely hard, I mean extremely easy, and by extremely easy I mean, it’s easy to hit the notes and cues and hard to make it sound interesting. If you’ve never heard it before (Thursday night), everything is fresh and lively. If you’ve heard it before (Friday night), it starts to sound flat and finished, almost artificial. It’s like the second time you watch a movie you liked and you notice the shadow of a boom mike on one of the characters in the background. From that day forward, every time you watch that movie, you’ll be waiting for the shadow of the microphone. (It also kind of explains why they didn’t practice “Have ... Christmas”, because, who wants to play from the set list when they’re practicing?)

"You're beautiful!"

There are a couple other things I learned, and some better photos coming in part 2.

November’s over. Here comes my month!

Although I am not particularly looking forward to turning 51 in a couple of weeks (something about being exactly a half century old that I like), I have a lot to look forward to this month. Thanks to a quirk in the calendar, not only do I have five piano lessons this month, I get paid three times, too. As the year is winding down, I’m taking off more time to use up vacation, and of course, working in automotive means year end shutdown from December 23 through January 4. (January 5 will suck, but that's next month.) That’s not all though.

What I’ll be doing with some of those days off is spending a lot of time in Nashville, starting Friday December 5 to see Manhattan Transfer. The founder of the group may have passed away, but the show must go on. I’m looking forward to seeing this renowned group for the first time. Less than a week after that will be Tony Bennett, and we are going to catch both his shows. For the second show on December 12, we’ll be up in a loge box (right above the stage) for the first time. That will be a good experience because by comparing the two shows, I’ll get to learn a little about performance nuances from one of the greatest performers of our time.

That's front row center, front row center, stage side loge front row. It pays to be a patron of the arts!

October was a nasty month, but November was better. Now comes the best month of the year. I’m so damn happy I might even put up some Christmas lights, just for the heck of it. We can certainly decorate the inside of the house because then, I can listen to my big band Christmas CD’s while doing it.

Haul out the holly, it’s going to be a jazzy December (as always).

Jazz music buyer meets very strong algorithms

Over the years, I've purchased a bunch of CD’s on Amazon, including a few box sets and such from Tony Bennett. Right around the time we bought tickets to see Tony Bennett in concert in Nashville this December, Amazon started flashing me with a Tony Bennett Lady Gaga duets album pop-up. It was relentless. They really wanted me to pre-order this record, but, having never listened to Lady Gaga and not being all the enamored of a young woman who never shows her own face and wears meat dresses, I told myself that no matter how much I liked Tony Bennett, his recording with Lady G was one I was going to pass on.

Still the popups came. It didn't matter if I was shopping for books, music, salt shakers, saxophone reeds, cheesecloth, pineapple corers, sheet music, silver polish, a hand ax, Roomba parts, super glue, or protein powder. As sure as I was going to check the box for “checkout”, Tony and Lady were going to bounce up to tell me, “Eric, new for you!” It wasn't new. And frankly, an 88-year old guy with makeup by himself is not disconcerting, and a 28-year old pop star with a curly black wig and makeup is not disturbing, but together, staring at you, calling you by name, it is disconcerting, disturbing, and downright scary. For months, this went on, but as the sale date of the recording approached, Amazon figured they had given it their best shot, and eventually, the popups stopped.

 

Sometimes they just send me an email. You know, maybe I missed the popup or something.

Then came a Wall Street Journal article about the recording, together with an interview with Lady Gaga. It talked about how it came to be that Lady Gaga sings jazz, not only with Tony Bennett, but also that she wants to release at least one solo jazz album every year “forever”. It talked about the odd pairing of the two, how Tony ended up wearing different performance outfits, and how Lady Gaga was able to tap into some previously unheard part of herself, thanks entirely to Tony Bennett’s encouragement. Suddenly, everything made sense. I shared the article with Mrs. S who just asked, “So, are you going to buy the CD?” Of course, the answer was ‘yes’. I pre-ordered the CD. Amazon knew exactly what I wanted before I even knew I wanted it. In fact, they knew I wanted it, before I even really understood what it was. Some would say that is scarier than the faces on the popups. I, however, am oddly relieved to know a company can generate a computer program that knows me and my intentions better than I do. I’m almost happy about it. No, I AM happy about it!

From now on, if I have any question about anything in my life, I think I will just ask Amazon.

Day 27 and 28 – Independence Day and the day before that:

Goals: Just trying to move forward.

Music: Tony Bennett’s “Jazz”; Kenny Burrell’s “Midnight Blue”; Peter Brotzmann’s “The Complete Machine Gun Sessions”. (There was no music on July 3 because I was working outside and only briefly. And Christ, Peter Brotzmann’s work is crap. Don’t buy it unless you need something to piss off a roommate or something.)

On Saturday, I pretty much took a break from working on the piano. I finished up the keys, which was an intermittent job, gluing the white tops back on the key arms. They are all as secure and as flat as they are going to get. Then, late in the afternoon, I took the loose wood pieces – the legs, the lyre, the music stand, the front board and the soundboard trim and washed them down with Murphy’s oil soap. I was amazed at how just washing them got a ton of dirt off and made them look that much better. As soon as the legs dried, I glued the fabricated leg piece onto the leg that was missing a chunk. I wanted to use some brads to hold it down, but it kept slipping, so I left the bradding until the next session.

Today, I decided to tackle all the cosmetic stuff. So, I put two brads into the leg chunk to hold it in place and filled in and around it with wood filler. It is as secure as it is going to get.

I then set about finishing the legs. I wasn’t sure what the legs would look like if I just stained over their current poor quality finish, but I figured with it being a strong oil-based chemical, I had a decent chance that it would even everything out and look pretty nice when I got through with it.

I think you can tell from the "after and before" picture (after on the left, above) that I was right (although I won’t know until everything completely dries). I finished the legs and the lyre, but forgot to do the music stand and fascia before I cleaned my brush. I’ll still have to stain the piano anyway, so instead of going back and staining some more, I tried the nasty furniture re-finisher on the soundboard trim. It improved it, but I think I’m going to buy something fancy and replace it anyway.

Then I spray painted the harp. The color that I chose to match the screws I bought was indeed very close to the screw color, but it was far too dark for it to be the final color of the harp. I’m going to have to buy some brighter gold or brass color paint and redo it. I’m going to try and go over it lightly to leave some of the dark metallic color showing through.

And that was it. Tomorrow, I will definitely do some more work on the piano, but I have to go back to work the day after that, so we’ll probably take it easy during the rest of the week, at least until the weekend. After all, I’ve got to take Mrs. S. out for her birthday (Wednesday).

Two additions to the Yoity Tot CD List

Just in time for Christmas (well, not really), here are two CD's I highly recommend. I love them both so much, I'm going ahead and adding them to the Yoity Tot CD list. Tony Bennett's "Jazz" makes it on the strength of his interpretations of many great jazz standards. I especially love his takes on Ellington's Don't Get Around Much Anymore and Solitude. Also, the recording is chock full of other jazz superstars, like Herbie Hancock, Count Basie, Stan Getz, Art Blakey, and many more.

The latest recording by Gordon Goodwin and his Big Phat Band is the other going on the list and in the top spot. Honestly, I haven't heard the entire recording yet because I can't get past Senor Mouse, but this rousing, full-out, big band stuff just gets in my blood and sends shivers down my spine. My love for jazz just deepens whenever I hear jazz done right, and George and BPB do it right. That's all I can say. It's a freakin' great recording.

Personal note of (some) interest (maybe): It's a little funny that I discovered Gordon Goodwin the day before my birthday and his band's latest recording is titled "Act Your Age". I turned 45 today, so I'm officially "pushing 50". That means if I act my age, realizing my dream of someday conducting in front of a big band will be really, really hard to achieve. So to hell with that. I've decided to pursue that dream nonetheless. I'll save "my dream" entry for another day...