The Year of Tony Bennett

An Appreciation of the Art and Music of Tony Bennett

By Leave a Comment

Remembering Ralph Sharon on his Birthday

The Year of Tony Bennett is proud to remember Ralph Sharon on anniversary of his birth on September 17, 1923.

Ralph Sharon was born in London, England to an English father and an American mother, who was a professional pianist.

Mr. Sharon found success quite early in life. By the age of 20, he was playing for Ted Heath in England, all the time playing additional jazz gigs and recording for the BBC. In the early 1950s, he emigrated to New York. He worked with prominent musicians, recording albums with noted jazz musicians, including Charles Mingus, Jo Jones, and others.

Ralph Sharon is seminal figure in the early recording history of Tony Bennett. A noted jazz pianist, he encouraged Tony to explore his love of jazz at the same time the studio was attempting to guide Mr. Bennett into the role of popular singer. Sharon auditioned for Tony Bennett in 1957, as described by Mr. Bennett in his autobiography, The Good Life:

The first guy that showed up was okay, but the second guy, Ralph Sharon, just had to hit a few notes for me to know that he was the piano player for me.

At about the same time that Ralph Sharon began to play for Bennett, Columbia began to phase Mitch Miller out and Bennett began to work with other producers. Due to his enormous success, Bennett was able to stand up to the producers who wanted to keep him solely in the popular music hit factory. Tony Bennett had already recorded his first jazz album, Cloud 7, in 1955. Working with Sharon, they began to plan his next jazz album, Beat of My Heart. They assembled great percussionists to play the great standards, with exceptional arrangements by Mr. Sharon. In addition to great American drummers (including Nat Adderley, Chico Hamilton, Jo Jones, and Eddie Costa) they also brought in two important Latin American percussionists: Sabu and Candido. The album was one Tony Bennett’s finest albums to date and was well-received by jazz fans.

In 1962, Bennett and Sharon released one of my favorite albums, Tony Sings For Two. At a time when so much popular music was over-produced with enormous string sections, this album with just Ralph Sharon on piano and Tony Bennett singing was quite revolutionary. This album is quite exceptional and very beautiful. T

In 1966, Ralph Sharon and Tony Bennett parted ways. Mr. Sharon lived on the West Coast and wanted to spend less time on the road. They reunited in 1979 and continued to play with Mr. Bennett until 2002. They did wonderful work together on albums Mr. Bennett released in that period: Art of Excellence, Bennett/Berlin, Perfectly Frank, and the MTV Unplugged concert, among others.

Speaking strictly as fan of Tony Bennett, I am grateful for the collaboration between Ralph Sharon and Tony Bennett.

Ralph Sharon died on March 31, 2015 in Boulder, Colorado. He was 91 years old.

NPR did a nice story about Ralph Sharon soon after his death:

By 2 Comments

Musical Collaborator of the Month: Ralph Sharon

The Year of Tony Bennett is proud to recognize Ralph Sharon as the musical collaborator the month for September 2017.

Ralph Sharon was born in London on September 23, 1923. He emigrated to the United States in 1954 and in 1958, became Tony Bennett’s pianist and musical director.

I’ll be sharing more about Mr. Sharon over this month. But today I’ll let Mr. Bennett speak, in his wonderful memory of Ralph in Jazz Times.

Tony Bennett Remembers Ralph Sharon – JazzTimes

Each year, in our March issue, we ask prominent musicians to pay tribute to fellow artists who have passed in the previous year. This piece appeared in the March 2016 edition of JazzTimes. As with other artists, there’s always one song that’s bigger than any other song, and for me that was “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

By Leave a Comment

Happy Birthday to Count Basie

The Year of Tony Bennett remembers our musical collaborator of the month, William James “Count” Basie on the anniversary of his birth on August 21, 1904.

While we’ve been featuring the work he did with Tony Bennett on Basie/Bennett and In Person!, today I’d like to feature some of Basie’s biggest hits from the late 1930s and early 1940s, including “One O’Clock Jump.”

One O"Clock Jump - The Very Best Of Count Basie

Listen to One O"Clock Jump - The Very Best Of Count Basie on Spotify · compilation · Count Basie · 2006 · 14 songs

By 2 Comments

Happy Birthday to Mitch Miller

The Year of Tony Bennett would like to recognize the anniversary of the birth of Mitch Miller on July 4, 1911.

I uncovered this video of Tony, Mitch with his oboe, and Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion from 1969. I kid you not. I will state that I don’t think Tony was cut out to smoke a pipe or, as in this video, use it as a prop.

By 1 Comment

Rest in Peace, Kay Starr

It was with great sadness that The Year of Tony Bennett learned that Kay Starr passed away on November 3, 2016 at her home in Bel Air, California, from complications due to Alzheimer’s disease.

She was one of the great singers of the 20th century who did it all: country, western, popular, jazz, the blues and more. Of all of her accolades, I think the greatest came from Billie Holiday, who said that “she was the only white woman who could sing the blues.”

Kay Starr was born in Dougherty, Oklahoma on July 21, 1922, but soon moved with the family to Dallas, Texas. Her singing talents were recognized when she was quite young; she won many radio station talent contests as a child. She was only ten years old when she was earning $3 a night singing popular and hillbilly music.

After high school, she moved to Los Angeles and began working with Charlie Barnet’s band. In 1947, she was signed by Capitol Records, though found herself taking a back seat to the more established female singers. In spite of that, she steadily built a solid and long-lasting career as a singer.

Her background in pop, jazz and country-western type music was unusual, but put her in a position to sing all types of music, though her primary interest and leanings were to sing jazz and she became known as a “saloon singer” and was known for her emotional power and connection to the songs she sang.

You can her obituaries from the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times by clicking on the links.

We leave you with the duet she recorded with Tony Bennett in 2001 for the album Playin’ With My Friends: Tony Bennett Sings the Blues: “Blue and Sentimental.”

Blue and Sentimental (with Kay Starr)

Listen to Blue and Sentimental (with Kay Starr) on Spotify. Song · Tony Bennett, Kay Starr · 2001