Jazz Articles about Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett: Duets: An American Classic

by Ernest Barteldes
November 12, 2006

Tony Bennett, a Queens-born singer, celebrates his 80th with his voice sounding as great as it has been for years; on Duets, he revisits some of his classics with a group of friends and admirers.

Some of the guest appearances on these tracks are not really surprising, like Barbra Streisand's on “Smile." Celine Dion is one of those singers who suffers from bad choices in her own repertoire, but when given the opportunity to tackle a great song, she does ...

Tony Bennett: The Complete Improv Recordings

by Andrew Rowan
February 3, 2006

Once upon a time the line between jazz singing and jazz-tinged popular singing was blurred. Singers like Mabel Mercer, Sylvia Syms and Bobby Short roamed the borders between jazz, pop and cabaret, and the world was better for it. On the jazz side, singers like Billie Holiday, Joe Williams, Carmen McRae and Shirley Horn looked across that artificial divide and admired the intimacy and storytelling prowess of their cabaret contemporaries. Concord's release of The Complete Improv Recordings blurs that line ...

Tony Bennett Opens Kimmel Center Mellon Jazz Festival Season

by Victor L. Schermer
September 22, 2005

Tony Bennett is an icon of popular culture. His ascendance in that pantheon began with his famous endorsement by Frank Sinatra as the nation's best male vocalist, and a string of hit recordings lifted him to the top. Culturally, Bennett and Sinatra came to represent the two sides of the American male of the 1940's through '60's: Sinatra, the roguish romantic individualist, and Bennett, the true gentleman leading the “good life of the Golden Mean. Believe me--I grew up with ...

The Complete Improv Recordings

by Jim Santella
December 10, 2004

While the 1970s turned popular music upside down, Tony Bennett maintained a casual composure. Throughout the turmoil, he continued to bring us pleasant ballads and heartfelt classics. From his own Improv label, this 4-CD anthology reissues five albums: Life is Beautiful , Tony Bennett Sings 10 Great Rodgers and Hart Songs , Tony Bennett Sings More Great Rodgers and Hart , Together Again , and Tony Bennett/The McPartlands and Friends Make Magnificent Music. The collection also includes tracks originally released ...

Tony Bennett: The Essential Tony Bennett

by AAJ Staff
January 20, 2003

Tony Bennett ends nearly every performance with the musical question “How do you keep the music playing?" After nearly five decades in the industry, the more important question seems to be how do you capture the music on a two-disc set? And yet that's what Tony’s appreciative label has tried to do. From a Grammy-winning live take on “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got That Swing)" to Bennett’s signature “I Left My Heart in San Francisco," this ...

Tony Bennett: Tony Bennett Sings Ellington Hot and Cool

by AAJ Staff
January 20, 2003

As he continues to light up the world as the biggest and brightest carrier of the Great American Songbook torch, Tony Bennett also continues to bridge the past to the future through his song and accompanist selections. On his own tribute to the great centenarian Duke Ellington, Bennett does not so much look back at Ellington’s masterworks as look them over with his own fresh and bright-eyed perspective.Bennett recruits the help of his son Danny (with whom he ...

Tony Bennett: Sings Ellington Hot And Cool

by C. Michael Bailey
February 1, 2000

All Class. In the end, there was Tony Bennett. Oft quoted and making a rock-hard point, Frank Sinatra once mused that Bennett was the finest male vocalist performing. And here in arguably the Autumn of his years is Bennett, performing at a new career height. Sings Ellington Hot and Cool is the fourth in a successful series of discs focusing exclusively on contemporaries of Bennett. These releases include 1992’s Perfectly Frank Frank Sinatra, Columbia 52965); 1993’s Steppin’ Out (Fred Astaire, ...