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Tony Bennett / Bill Evans: The Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings

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Tony Bennett / Bill Evans: The Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings
In the mid-1970s, when singer Tony Bennett got together with pianist Bill Evans to record The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album (Concord, 1975) and Together Again (Concord, 1976), Bennett was considered terminally uncool by most jazz fans under 30, and rock fans of any age. Despite a few earlier outings in jazz contexts, including an album recorded with Count Basie's orchestra, Basie Swings, Bennett Sings (Roulette, 1959) he was primarily regarded as an MOR singer, defined in the public consciousness by his 1962 hit "I Left My Heart In San Francisco."

But the passage of time encourages revisionism, and just as many jazz fans, even young ones, will in 2009 admit to experiencing Burt Bacharach moments, so Bennett has in later life been enjoying a new place in the sun. Aged 72, he was among the biggest successes at the UK's Glastonbury Festival in 1998, and who would have predicted that in the 1970s?

Evans, on the other hand, had by the mid-1970s been cooler than ice for approaching two decades; certainly since his inclusion on trumpeter Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959). Cerebral, introspective and harmonically sophisticated, Evans had come through bouts of heroin addiction with his artistry not just intact but deepened. (Cocaine would play a part in his death in 1980, but when he recorded the albums with Bennett he was said to be clean, or as clean as a recovering addict can be).

The double CD, The Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings includes—along with The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album and Together Again, which make up the first disc—20 alternate takes from the sessions which produced the albums, plus two titles recorded for Together Again but not included on it ("Who Can I Turn To?" and "Dream Dancing.") All the material has been released previously.

It is a great package. There is an intriguing juxtaposition of opposites running through the music—Bennett the expansive, heart on sleeve, vibrato man, Evans the inward looking aesthete—which makes for charged listening, if charged is an adjective which can be applied to something so relaxed. And the projects were genuinely collaborative, with the artists on an equal footing: Evans solos wonderfully throughout and Together Again actually starts with a solo piano piece, "The Bad And The Beautiful," put there at Bennett's suggestion to emphasize that this was not just a vocalist-with-accompanist affair.

Received wisdom holds that The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album has the edge over Together Again, but hearing the albums one after the other, chronologically, makes that questionable. By the time Bennett and Evans made the second album they had been performing live together for a year and their partnership, comfortable though it was on the first album, sounds even better oiled.

P.S. There have been several outstanding vocal recordings of Evans' "Waltz For Debby," not least the one Evans recorded with the Swedish singer Monica Zetterlund in 1964. One of the greatest is the Evans/Bennett version from The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album, which can be heard on the YouTube clip below. (And watch, too, this footage of Evans and Zetterlund rehearsing the song for a TV show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTWALZesqUo).

Track Listing

The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album (1975); Young And Foolish; The Touch Of Your Lips; Some Other Time; When In Rome; We'll Be Together Again; My Foolish Heart; Waltz For Debby; But Beautiful; Days Of Wine And Roses; Together Again (1976); The Bad And The Beautiful; Lucky To Be Me; Make Someone Happy; You're Nearer; A Child Is Born; The Two Lonely People; You Don't Know What Love Is; Maybe September; Lonely Girl; You Must Believe In Spring; Bonus Tracks From The 1976 Together Again Sessions; Who Can I Turn To?; Dream Dancing; Alternate Takes From The 1975 The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album Sessions; Young and Foolish (Alternate, Take 4); The Touch Of Your Lips (Alternate, Take 1); Some Other Time (Alternate, Take 7); When In Rome (Alternate, Take 11); Waltz For Debby (Alternate, Take 8); Alternate Takes From The 1976 Together Again Sessions; The Bad And The Beautiful (Alternate, Take 1); The Bad And The Beautiful (Alternate, Take 2); Make Someone Happy (Alternate, Take 5); You're Nearer (Alternate, Take 9); A Child Is Born (Alternate, Take 2); A Child Is Born (Alternate, Take 7); The Two Lonely People (Alternate, Take 5); You Don't Know What Love Is (Alternate, Take 16); You Don't Know What Love Is (Alternate, Take 18); Maybe September (Alternate, Take 5); Maybe September (Alternate, Take 8); Lonely Girl (Alternate, Take 1); You Must Believe In Spring (Alternate, Take 1); You Must Believe in Spring (Alternate, Take 4); Who Can I Turn To? (Alternate, Take 6);

Personnel

Tony Bennett: vocals; Bill Evans: piano.

Album information

Title: The Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings | Year Released: 2008 | Record Label: Fantasy

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