The Year of Tony Bennett

An Appreciation of the Art and Music of Tony Bennett

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Song of the Day: Make Someone Happy

The song of the day for Saturday, March 2, 2013 is Make Someone Happy.

About This Song

Make Someone Happy was written for the 1960 Broadway musical Do Re Mi by Jule Styne, with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The song is from the second act and was introduced on Broadway by John Reardon and Nancy Dussault. Make Someone Happy is probably the best-known song from the show. In addition to today’s recording, it has been recorded by June Christy, Perry Como, Doris Day, Jimmy Durante, Judy Garland and Aretha Franklin, among others.

About This Version

Today’s song is from the second Tony Bennett – Bill Evans album, Together Again. I love every note on this album, but this recording is one of my favorites.

http://open.spotify.com/track/3YimtiKaG8qW9r4J9fSjAl
Make Someone Happy, as well as the entire Together Again album, is available from iTunes. Note that this remastered version contains several of the outtakes from the recording session.

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Song of the Day: The Party’s Over

The song of the day for Saturday, February 23, 2013 is The Party’s Over.

About The Party’s Over

It’s pretty hard to beat any song composed by the great Jule Styne with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. And that definitely includes The Party’s Over, from the 1956 musical Bells Are Ringing, with Judy Holliday. The song immediately became popular, with recordings by Nat King Cole, Shirley Bassey and even Leslie Gore in 1963.

About This Version

The Party’s Over is the last song on Tony Bennett’s glorious 1959 album Hometown, My Town. One of the earliest “concept” albums, this album is, for me, one of his best (if relatively unknown) jazz albums. And, in spite of fact that we are presenting a single song as the song of the day, the album should be listened to in full to hear the story that Bennett is singing for us. It is the story of young man living in Manhattan, yearning for love, finding it and losing it in the end. But it is never trite and is beautifully sung. The album was wonderfully arranged by Ralph Burns.

I have loved this album from the moment I discovered it. I find that it’s an interesting bookend to Bennett’s 1990 Astoria: The Portrait of the Artist, where he looks back at his life in Astoria after returning home from World War II. If you can find time this weekend, do yourself a favor and listen to both these albums, preferably in a single sitting. Both are intensely personal autobiographies of a young man from the viewpoint of that very young man and the adult looking back. And it’s really, really good music.

http://open.spotify.com/track/1fybSs6gewxKZyojiAHsNB
The Party’s Over, as well as the full Hometown, My Town album, is available from iTunes.

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Song of the Day: Just In Time

The Song of the Day for September 5, 2012 is Just In Time.

About Just In Time

Written by Jule Styne (music) and Betty Comden and Adolph Green (lyrics), Just In Time is just one the great hits from the 1956 Broadway musical Bells Are Ringing.  The stars of the show, Judy Holliday and Sydney Chaplin introduced the song. Tony Bennett recorded the song in the same year, and it was a big hit for Mr. Bennett. The Party’s Over, another song recorded by Mr Bennett (Hometown, My Town in 1959) was the other major hit song from this wonderful score.

About This Version

Mr. Bennett has sung this song over his career, including his duet with Michael Bublé in the 2006 Duets album. But perhaps his most significant performance was never recorded. Starting on March 21, 1965, Tony Bennett marched with Martin Luther King, now-Congressman John Lewis, Ralph Bunche, Billy Eckstine, Leonard Bernstein and many, many others on the Third March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. On the evening of March 24, 1965 on a makeshift stage (created with coffins loaned by a local mortuary), a Stars for Freedom rally and concert was held. In addition to Mr. Bennett, the performers included Harry Belafonte, Frankie Laine, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Peter, Paul and Mary.

The documentary film Tony Bennett: The Music Never Ends, contains a short clip from this concert (approximately 21:28 in). You can easily see how completely and totally exhausted Mr. Bennett was at this rally. He got up and sang Just In Time and for the American civil rights movement, it was just in time. As a result of the marches from Selma to Montgomery, President Johnson introduced and Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, major battle in the Civil Rights movement.

For today, we present Mr. Bennett’s original recording of Just in Time, released as single and compiled here on the first CD of the Fifty Years of Tony Bennett box set.

Just in Time

Tony Bennett · Fifty Years - The Artistry Of Tony Bennett · Song · 2004

As I write this topic, the First Lady of the United States of America, Michelle Obama, just finished addressing the delegates to the 2012 Democratic Convention. To have such a moment in our history, we owe thanks to many brave Americans who have fought racism all their lives, including Tony Bennett. Thank you, Mr. Bennett.