An Appreciation of the Art and Music of Tony Bennett
We were so busy yesterday blogging about Tony Bennett and Antonia Bennett singing at the Montreux Jazz Festival, we forgot it was our one month anniversary.
To celebrate, we’ve added Spotify support and a Song of the Day section. You can download Spotify for free. And yes, the performers are paid a royalty each time you play a song.
Enjoy!
Suzanne
The Year of Tony Bennett is fourteen days old today. Yes, we’ve been here since June 11, 2012! A mere blog infant, we are.
We are profoundly grateful to all of our readers and especially to the followers of this blog. We’re getting ready to cut our first check to the Exploring the Arts Foundation: $1 for each follower. Help us reach the $300 mark by the end of June.
This blog supports Exploring the Arts, a non-profit organization founded in 1999 by Tony Bennett and Susan Benedetto. Please visit their website to learn more about the wonderful work that they do for young artists.
The Year of Tony Bennett will contribute $1 to ETA for each new follower of this blog. Help us help ETA.
Suzanne
I have had the great fortune to see Mr. Bennett live in concert several times. My first concert was in Seattle in September, 2007 at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre and it was wonderful. Then there was a bit of a wait until his performance in my home city of Portland, Oregon in May, 2011. Both of these concerts I attended alone.
Next up, though, Mr. Bennett was scheduled again in Seattle at the Paramount Theatre in December, 2011. This time I invited my best friend and co-blogger, Lesley, to join me. I’ll let her tell her own story of her introduction to the music of Tony Bennett, but it was a wonderful evening.
And thus started The Year of Tony Bennett. We were surprised and happy to find that Mr. Bennett would be visiting the Spirit Mountain Casino in February, 2012 and off we were to that concert. We had such a great time that we decided that we would try really hard to see him one more time in 2012.
That opportunity soon presented himself with an outdoor concert in San Diego in September 2012: the week of my birthday. It was a no-brainer. Next it turns out that he’ll be at the Monterey Jazz Festival the night before. Why not? Jazz Festival tickets booked … a grand weekend of the MJF and the San Diego concert … what better way to celebrate my upcoming birthday?
The icing on this particular cake will be his appearance at Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival on Labor Day weekend. This time, we’re taking Lesley’s ten-year-old son who, by virtue of listening to Tony Bennett’s music in his mother’s car, is now a fan. This will be his first concert.
Not to mention my purchase of the Complete Collection, which I am exploring with awe and wonder and joy.
Here’s a short video about the Complete Collection. It’s available for purchase at www.tonybennett.com.
Thank you, Tony.
Suzanne
Welcome to the Year of Tony Bennett.
My best friend and I are ardent fans of Mr. Bennett, and with some luck and a lot of planning, we have had and are going to have several occasions to see Tony live in concert this year.
We’re also listening carefully to his work, thanks to the release of his wonderful complete collection.
This blog is our personal journey in the examination of the work of a great artist and musician whom we both admire.
Welcome to our journey.