The Year of Tony Bennett

An Appreciation of the Art and Music of Tony Bennett

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Album of the Week: My Heart Sings

The album of the week starting on February 27, 2022, is My Heart Sings.

My Heart Sings

Tony Bennett remembers My Heart Sings in his autobiography, The Good Life:

Ralph Burns and I got together again to do some singles, including “Smile,” and for our next album we changed gears again. Instead of the lush, ballad-style arrangements we had used on Hometown, My Town, we switched to a cookin’ jazz sound. The album is called My Heart Sings, and I simply love Ralph’s writing on this one. It’s really beautiful music.

This album is a preview of 1962, which was an outstanding year for Tony Bennett, including his concert at Carnegie Hall and winning his first Grammy Award for “I Left My Heart In San Francisco.”

My Heart Sings was recorded in 3 sessions on 3 consecutive days: April 4, April 5, and April 6, 1961.

Album Facts

Release Date August 7, 1961
Label Columbia
Producer Ernie Altschuler
Vocals Tony Bennett
Arrangements, Conductor Ralph Burns
Piano Bernie Leighton
Bass Milt Hinton
Drums Herb Lovelle
Guitar Barry Galbraith, Chuck Wayne, Mundell Lowe
Saxophone Danny Bank, Al Klink, Toots Mondello, Romeo Penque, Jerry Sanfino
Trumpet Bernie Glow, Irving Markowitz, Jimmy Maxwell, Carl Sereinsen
Trombone Robert Alexander, Urbie Green, Dick Hixson, Frank Rehak
Vibes Eddie Costa

Songs on My Heart Sings

Song Composers
Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me Rube Bloom, Ted Koehler
Dancing in the Dark Arthur Schwartz, Howard Dietz
I’m Comin’ Virginia Donald Heywood, Will Marion Cook
My Heart Sings Jean Blanvillain (Jamblin), Harold Rome, Henri Laurent Herpin
It Never Was You Kurt Weill, Maxwell Anderson
You Took Advantage of Me Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart
Close Your Eyes Bernice Petkere
Stella By Starlight Victor Young, Ned Washington
More Than You Know Vincent Youmans, Billy Rose, Edward Eliscu
My Ship Kurt Weill, Ira Gershwin
Lover Man Jimmy Davis, Roger “Ram” Ramirez, James Sherman
Toot, Toot, Tootsie Gus Kahn, Ernie Erdman, Ted Fiorito, Dan Russo

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Album of the Week: Tony Sings For Two

The album of the week starting on February 20, 2022, is Tony Sings For Two.

Tony Sings For Two

On October 28, 1959, Tony Bennett and Ralph Sharon entered the CBS 30th Street Studio with a briefcase full of sheet music to record an album with no orchestra, just Bennett and Sharon on piano. They looked through the music and tried different tunes. Once a song was selected, they recorded it in one or two takes; the arrangements were spontaneous. In one afternoon, they recorded 16 songs, 12 of which made it onto the album; a 13th song was added to the 1995 CD re-release. Mitch Miller showed up at the start of these sessions, furious that they were really going through with it. When he saw that there was no dissuading Bennett, he turned to Frank Laico and said, “I’m leaving. I can’t support this.” The resulting album, Tony Sings For Two was released until early 1961. The album was a masterpiece and is one of Bennett’s finest albums.

Album Facts

Release Date February 6, 1961
Label Columbia
Producer Mitch Miller
Vocals Tony Bennett
Piano Ralph Sharon
Recording Date October 28, 1959
Recording Engineer Frank Laico

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Album of the Week: Tony Bennett Sings a String of Harold Arlen

The album of the week starting on February 12, 2022, is Tony Bennett Sings a String of Harold Arlen.

Tony Bennett Sings a String of Harold Arlen was Tony Bennett’s first album dedicated to a composer and that composer was one of his favorites: Harold Arlen. The orchestral arrangements are quite beautiful. Bennett remembers this album in The Good Life:

Later on that year I did my first, and for many years my only, songbook album, A String of Harold Arlen. The son of a cantor, Harold grew up in Buffalo. He became the musical director of the Cotton Club and originally wrote many jazz compositions. But his pop songs were dramatic and right up my alley. Arlen was known for the jazzy quality of his melodies, but Mitch thought it would be novel to give his songs a lush, symphonic treatment. He brought in Glenn Osser, a veteran record and show orchestrator, and his charts were just right. I felt free singing to Glenn’s arrangements. We used a big orchestra of mainly classical players, and they really enjoyed the recording session. That’s the only album I ever made where the musicians actually applauded after each take.

 

Album Facts

Release Date March 30, 1961
Label Columbia
Producer Mitch Miller
Vocals Tony Bennett
Arrangements Glenn Osser

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Album of the Week: Hometown, My Town

The album of the week starting on February  6, 2022, is Hometown, My Town.

Hometown, My Town - Jazz Messengers

In 1958, Bennett wanted to create an album about his hometown, New York. Critic Nick Dedina says it best:

One of the best albums that Tony Bennett cut in the ’50s, Hometown, My Hometown is a song suite dedicated to the vocalist’s beloved New York City. The album was in part influenced by Gordon Jenkins‘ highly successful Manhattan Tower album which was a big seller throughout the ’50s. But unlike it and so many other similar theme albums (such as Sinatra‘s Come Fly with Me or Mel Tormé‘s Songs of New York), Bennett doesn’t sing songs that are specifically about geographical places in Manhattan or even about the city in general. Instead, the tunes are ones that Bennett feels best evoke the city and the unique solitude that one experiences on Manhattan’s crowded streets. Noted jazz arranger Ralph Burns is the perfect choice to flesh out and connect the numbers. He also gamely pens extended musical passages that evoke Manhattan even when the lyrics do not. Judged only on his sweeping, highly jazz-inflected arrangements here it’s not surprising that Burns would go on to win both Tonys and Oscars for his work in theater and film. Thematically, the album tells a story of a lonely urbanite who finds fleeting happiness with a girl and then loses her. It’s as simple as that. But while the lyrics to the final track — the standard “The Party’s Over” — may be construed as negative, Bennett puts a positive spin on the song, giving the sense that in a town like Manhattan the next chapter of the story is just around the corner. One of the heavily jazz accented albums that Bennett was able to cut between all of his orchestral ballad sessions, Hometown, My Hometown is shorter than most albums of the ’50s. Perhaps this is why this excellent work has been out of print for so long.

Album Facts

Release Date July 1959
Label Columbia
Producer Mitch Miller
Vocals Tony Bennett
Arrangements Ralph Burns
Piano Ralph Sharon
Tenor Sax Al Cohn
Baritone Sax Danny Bank
Trumpet Al De Risi, Bernie Glow, Marky Markowitz, Carl Poole
Trombone Billy Byers, Urbie Green, Chauncey Welsch
Guitar Al Caiola
Harp Janet Putman
Bass Pat Merola
Drums Terry Snyder
Percussion Don Lamond, Eddie Costa

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Album of the Week: Basie Swings, Bennett Sings

The album of the week starting on January 30, 2022, is Basie Swings, Bennett Sings.

Album Facts

Release Date 1959
Label Roulette
Producer Teddy Reig
Vocals Tony Bennett
Piano Count Basie, Ralph Sharon
Arrangements Ralph Sharon
Trumpet Thad Jones, Snooky Young, Wendell Culley, Joe Newman
Trombone Benny Powell, Henry Coker, Al Grey
Alto Saxophone Marshall Royal, Frank Weiss
Tenor Saxophone Frank Foster, Billy Mitchell
Baritone Saxophone Charlie Fowlkes
Guitar Freddie Green
Bass Eddie Jones
Drums Sonny Payne

After the relative success of Cloud 7 and The Beat of My Heart, Tony Bennett began to work on his dream of performing with Count Basie and Duke Ellington, whom he viewed as the greatest bandleaders of all time. He was able to work out a deal with Basie to record two albums: one live album on Columbia (details to follow ) and a studio album for Roulette, Basie’s label. This brought up a fight with Bennett’s current producer Mitch Miller, who felt Roulette would tarnish Bennett’s reputation.

Tony Bennett remembers those recordings in his autobiography, The Good Life:

Although I’d talked with him on the telephone I didn’t meet Count Basie until our rehearsals began. It was an amazing experience, the fulfillment of a dream, and I’ll never forget it. We hit it off right away, as though we always knew and understood each other. At one point Basie turned to his band, pointed at me, and said, “Anything this man wants, he gets!” I was floored.

Critic Richard S. Ginell wrote:

The Roulette half of the two Bennett/Basie sessions is a band singer’s paradise, with the Basie band caught at a robust and swinging peak and Bennett never sounding happier or looser in front of a microphone. The Count himself, alas, appears on piano only on two numbers (“Life Is a Song” and “Jeepers Creepers”), while Bennett’s perennial pianist Ralph Sharon takes over on the remaining ten tracks and does all the charts. Yet Sharon writes idiomatically for the Count’s style, whether on frantic rave-ups like “With Plenty of Money and You” and “Strike Up the Band” or relaxed swingers like “Chicago.” Though not a jazz singer per se, the flavor of jazz is everywhere in Bennett’s voice, which in those days soared like a trumpet. The 1990 CD included an atmospheric unissued Neal Hefti ballad “After Supper,” but even this bonus track does little to extend the skimpy playing time (about 31 minutes) of what is still a great, desirable snapshot from American showbiz of the late 1950s.

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