Friday Night With Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett and Queen Latifah - Who Can I Turn To?

Tonight is the end of a bad Friday ending a really bad week. Outside it’s cold and windy, drizzly, usual northeast Ohio weather!!! A cold that I got over last week liked me so much it has decided to visit me again. My nose is running like sieve. What’s a body to do? Television is filled with more Republican debates and discussion and pundits yakking away on the same stuff they were talking about this morning, yesterday, last week…enough already. And television just plain sucks. People actually get paid to write this stuff! I must have picked the wrong profession.

So it was with a degree of trepidation that I sat in my chair dressed in my pajamas and robe, wrapped in my throw blanket with an angel stitched into the fabric to watch over me, and channel surfed hoping against hope to find something worth watching. I struck gold tonight.

PBS aired a ninety minute Great Performances program of Tony Bennett’s Duet II album. It featured all of the cuts from the album with a diverse range of partners from Lady Gaga to John Mayer to Amy Winehouse to Michael Buble and Josh Grobin to name a few. These weren’t ersatz duets recorded separately in different studios and mixed into a sellable product at the local electronic mixer store. These duets were recorded live and together, with the majority of them including all of the instrumentalists in the studio.

I am not a music critic. I don’t have any special talent that makes my opinion worth much more than anyone else’s. I just know what I like. And this was perfection. I sat in awe watching these talented people, one after another, open the American song book and hit each of the songs out of the park. It is a classic.

While others my age were doing the hippie freakie thing in 1968, my musical taste drifted towards Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Steve and Edie Gorme, Dave Brubeck, Henry Mancini,and bossa novas by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Brazil 66. These performers had class. They represented a way of life that I always hoped for but never attained…maybe because it never really existed.

At the top of my list was Tony Bennett. He was then, and is now at the age of 85, the best of the best.  On my first trip to New York by myself when I was 18 I snuck into the back of the Empire Room at the Waldorf Astoria where he was performing.  I was in awe.   Many, many, MANY years later he came to Youngstown and I was fortunate enough to see him again. Still the best around.   And today, his voice is as clear and strong as it has ever been. His phrasing is impeccable. His tones are sustained and he can hit the high notes better now than he could 40 years ago.

I never could figure out what it is about him that I like. In an interview in tonight’s program, John Mayer spelled it out. Mayer said that his voice makes you feel safe. That’s it exactly. You can turn him on and let his voice wrap around you and you feel that everything is okay. I can’t think of one other singer that can do that.

From time to time I have written about finding the perfect chord and how it elevates you to a high. It doesn’t just have to be a chord. It can be an entire musical experience. I read some of the critical comments about Duets II. Well…everybody has their opinion. But for me, it doesn’t get any better than this. One song after another wraps you up and keeps you safe. Tony Bennett brings out the best in his partners. You can feel the chemistry.

The song choices are terrific. You can cry at the loss of a great talent with Amy Winehouse’s Body and Soul. You can pull out the Jack Daniels with John Mayer’s One for My Baby. Josh Grobin’s This is All I Ask is a stunner. Gaga shows she is a musician on par with Ella Fitzgerald as she camps it up with The Lady is Tramp. Michael Buble doesn’t have to worry about Don't Get Around Much Any More. He gets around just fine.

And through each of these songs, Tony Bennett shows his apparently ageless ability to match his vocal partner, and show that his talent knows no bounds. I can close my eyes and I am back at the Waldorf, standing in the back of the Empire Room watching an irreplaceable talent.

There’s nothing better than Friday night with Tony Bennett, unless I didn't have a cold!!! . And let the music play as long as there’s a song to sing. And I will be younger than spring.