The Year of Tony Bennett

An Appreciation of the Art and Music of Tony Bennett

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Album of the Month: If I Ruled The World: Songs For The Jet Set

The album of the month for February, 2015 is If I Ruled The World: Songs For The Jet Set.

IfIRuledTheWorld-CD-front

If I Ruled The World: Songs For The Jet Set was released on April 19, 1965. Bennett dedicated the album to Nat “King” Cole, who died just a month prior to the release of the album.

This album is one of Tony Bennett’s great albums from the middle of the 1960s, just before the arrival of Clive Davis at Columbia and the drastic changes to the label that followed.

For this album, Bennett worked with arranger Don Costa, who also arranged for Sinatra on occasion. The album’s concept is traveling: from Rio to Harlem and even to the moon, with stops in between. As we examine the album together this month, I suspect that we’ll all agree that If I Ruled The World: Songs For The Jet Set contains some of his finest recordings and excellent musicians, including Al Cohn and Bobby Hackett in addition to the Ralph Sharon Trio.

So, let’s get out our passports and take the world tour with Tony Bennett.

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Album of the Month: Cloud 7

The Year of Tony Bennett is happy to add a new feature for our readers: the Album of the Month. Each month, we will choose one of Tony’s albums and explore that album in some detail over the month.

Our first album of the month is Tony’s first full-length album: Cloud 7, which was released on February 7, 1955.

Cloud7

Having signed with Columbia in 1950, Bennett had turned out a string of very popular songs: “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” “Sing You Sinners,” “Cold, Cold Heart” and “Because of You.” But for his first album, he created a wonderful jazz album that remains beloved to this day.

Jazz critic Thom Jurek said of Cloud 7 that

The mood is nocturnal, elegant, amorous, hip.

As a first album by a young singer (Bennett was not even 30 when he made Cloud 7), it’s a remarkable album that defined Bennett not only as vastly popular singer, but a jazz artist with impeccable taste and true vision of his own artistry.

You can read more about Cloud 7 on The Interactive Tony Bennett Discography, where you can view a list of the songs on the album, read the liner notes and follow links to learn more about the recording sessions and details about each song.

Over the month, we’ll also be featuring each of the songs on the album as songs of the day.