Customer Reviews

Jazz

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
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If I were stranded on a desert island for the rest of my life and could have only 5 CDs, this would be one of them. But why? Tony Bennett has made fine music for 50 years, there are 108 Bennett albums listed (today) on Amazon, and although I consider myself a Bennett fan I know only a fraction of his music. So why THIS album? Well, quite simply, I believe it is unique - and even better than his other work.

Tony Bennett has always loved and performed jazz, but his earlier work (through the 60s) - was often more "popular" or "mainstream" than jazz - wonderful, but for a jazz fan, less nourishing. Jazz was something that he snuck into his albums because he loved it. Since the 90s, Tony has been more prolific and popular than ever, and jazz has been his primary idiom - his popularity has given him the freedom to make it so. But his voice, sadly, inevitably, is not what it was. But "Jazz", taken from recordings made from 1954 through 1967, is to my knowledge the only true jazz collection from the period when his vocal powers were at their peak. It also features some of the greatest jazz instrumental performers of that time.

There are 22 songs on the CD, and every one is strong. His moods range from playful to exuberant to gritty dignity in the face of heartbreak, connecting one song to the next with uncanny grace, as if this collection were a single concert instead of a 13-year retrospective. Most of the songs are not well known or often heard, but even those that are familiar to any jazz aficionado, come across as truly his own. For example, he takes the Cole Porter classic "Just One of Those Things" and performs it with only light, frantic drumming backing him, highlighting the casualness with which he dismisses his love affair. Another classic, "Stella By Starlight" is propelled by his soaring vocal - never has any singer sung the phrase "great symphonic themes" with more power than Tony. At the opposite extreme, "While the Music Plays On" and is a full-throated song of the emotional agony of maintaining dignity in the face of a lost lover dancing with a new partner.

I could go on and on about each song, but the plain truth is that each one is Tony Bennett at his absolute, inimitable best. This may be the most essential album for a Bennett fan to have. You will love it!

This is the best Tony Bennett collection. The large number of lesser known hits, all with a jazz edge, come together into a very consistent and listenable experience. A good overview of his career for the initiate. Very highly recommended even for the long-listener.

If you are familiar with Tony Bennett only from "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" or "MTV Unplugged," and are at all interested in him, listen to this one. This is Bennett's Best. He recorded this in the 1950's, when he was in his prime and his voice had all of the notes. The most stunning cuts from this album are the ones toward the end that he did with Stan Getz ("Out of This World", "Just Friends", "Have You Met Miss Jones" and "Danny Boy"), but the whole album is one glorious romp through the best of Tin Pan Alley. Essential for Bennett fans, and highly recommended for anyone else.

If you want to listen to some of Tony Bennett's jazziest and swingiest performances when he was younger, then this is for you. This is an absolute delight to fans of Tony Bennett and jazz aficionados who appreciate the talents of Count Basie, Zoot Sims, Ralph Sharon, Stan Getz, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Chico Hamilton, Herbie Mann, Art Blakey, Nat Adderley, Al Cohn, Chuck Wayne, Milt Hinton and Elvin Jones.

Mr. Bennett is singing his heart's sentiments with different tunes in "Solitude" and "I'm Through With Love," a song declaring that "he's through with love and has locked his heart and kept his feelings there, and stocked it with an icy, frigid air." Will somebody melt that icy heart?

While he's totally swinging it out with "I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me," "Lullaby of Broadway" and "Just One Of Those Things," he's gradually slowing it down with "Stella By Starlight," then easing it smoothly with "On Green Dolphin Street" and "Danny Boy."

Listen and enjoy the jazzy side of Tony Bennett.

Wholeheartedly recommended.

This is the finest CD collection that is available of Tony's jazz singing, and along with the two Bill Evans albums, the two Count Basie albums, Sings Rogers and Hart Songs and Bennett/Berlin one of the best jazz CDs in his catalogue. And he is truly a jazz singer at heart. Here we have the legendary Bennett/Getz sessions, plus tracks from various of his albums through the 50's up to 1967. And they are fine examples. But really if you want the whole deal you have to buy yourself a record player and collect the vinyls until Tony releases them on CD. The ones to look for are 'When Lights Are Low', 'My Heart Sings', 'Tony Sings for Two', 'Tony Makes It Happen' and 'Cloud 7'. These really are some of the greatest jazz vocal albums of the last half century.

This is a good effort. Tony Bennett sings in a swinging jazz style and does a great job of it. Some of the recordings are studio quality and others are recorded live. All are first rate. One song, though, sets this album apart. "Solitude" will grip even the most jaded heart. After hearing that one, the rest were superfluous. They were good, however.

Let's get that out of the way. Say what you want about Tony, but he is cool. Yeah, he was the guy you heard mentioned in sentences with Dean Martin and Liberace, that your mother used to watch on the Merv Griffin show, and whatever else he was doing in the 60's, 70's and 80's while you were too busy growing up to pay attention. Now, that you, like me, are older, wiser, and have some time to devote to jazz, you're maybe thinking about buying this CD, but you're just not sure, because of all that Merv Griffin stuff. Well, put that all aside. Tony Bennett is the definition of a male jazz singer, and this CD, combining 2 LP's worth of material, proves it. The supporting artists list reads like a jazz hall of fame induction plaque: Count Basie, Ron Carter, Nat Adderley, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Herbie Hancock, Art Blakey, and on. The songs are classic jazz fare from a mixture of eras and writers: Ellington, Rodgers and Hart, Washington and Young, Porter, Berlin, and on. The tracks were recorded over a period of fourteen years or so, mostly studio takes, but some live mixed in. My favorites are the Ellington pieces, as Tony's rhythmic touches and elegant voicing really brings some life into those old tunes. I'm also partial to the live tracks for their level of spontaneity and (obviously) liveliness. The production level of this CD is quite high. I didn't hear any noise, hissing or popping, not even on the live tracks (although those are a little flat sounding at times). The liner notes are very generous, featuring an interview with Tony where he talks about everything from how he got his start to how he worked with Bill Evans on The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album. The liners also include info on the recording date and backing musicians for all 22 tracks (much appreciated by us students of jazz music and its history). All in all, this is one of the gems of my jazz music collection, and if you buy it, it will be the same for yours. And if this isn't enough coolness for you, I might also recommend MTV Unplugged ~ Tony Bennett, which is also a really hot CD made more recently, allowing the listener to hear the maturity in Tony's voice. (Produced for MTV, so you know it's cool, too.)

Tony Bennett never has the least hesitation about identifying his two "main influences": Louis Armstrong (even today Roberta Gambarini says the same) and Bing Crosby (so scandalously taken for granted), with his third accolade most likely to go to Fred Astaire. But Frank Sinatra frequently cited the same sources of influence, if not quite so emphatically (his 4/4 swing is of a different order from either Louis' or Bing's feel, and his attraction to Lady Day and Mabel Mercer reveals an added interest in the challenges of constructing persona capable of delivering any text believably and artfully). Sinatra carried the burden of any trailblazer--dealing with the "anxiety of influence" as much as proclaiming and celebrating the immediate predecessor (Crosby), who represented a tradition that was still very much alive in the present moment. His was the burden of explaining/demonstrating his "difference" in a way that would establish his unique identity and approach. Tony, on the other hand, came up late enough to have a perspective enabling him to draw liberally from all of these noteworthy predecessors, yet both men ultimately came from the same musical gene pool, lineage, heritage and source.

Whereas some listeners more readily associate Tony with "jazz" than Frank, I'd never pull punches about Sinatra as a "jazz singer." The fact is that he is most certainly a jazz singer, whether swinging harder than any other big band vocalist or dissecting the most nuanced Arlen or Harry Warren ballad. To call him exclusively a "pop" singer does him an injustice, suggesting that his stringent criteria concerning phrasing, inflection, elocution, and interpretation produce a result that is little more than a stiff reading. Far from it: Sinatra may have "worked" his material harder than other vocalists, but the result was art that was at once extemporaneous, vibrant and enduring--poignant moments that linger because they're always "real," simultaneously genuine and personal, hardly ever dated or expendable--despite the leeway granted an "interpretive" performer whose medium is the language of jazz.

Granted, Tony Bennett is the kind of jazz singer most of us are more accustomed to--the kind of musician who seems always up for a session and who's fine with coming in and knocking off 20-30 tunes with little to no fussing over the minute details (though the Bill Evans' sessions represent a comparative exception, since there he does work his material much like Sinatra).

Although I usually avoid "anthologies" (they rarely do justice by the artist and, especially with Sinatra, a "Best of" collection amounts to a "parting out" of an organic whole into an MP3 cyberspatial junkyard of scattered pieces). But this album is an exception: 22 songs covering the years 1954 (some listeners may not recognize the voice) to 1965 (no mistaking it by now)--and each demonstrating the kind of looser, more casual approach to the music that we associate with most jazz musicians. There's plenty of instrumental solo space (Getz is heard to good advantage), some unexpected revelations (Tony's admiration of Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers was new to be), and songs whose acquaintance many listeners are likely to make for the first time ("Love Scene" and "While the Music Plays On" are the two that caught me completely by surprise).

In sum, this is one of the small minority of single-disc anthologies that deserves a place on the shelf of any Bennett or jazz fan.

When I was growing up, Tony Bennet and many others like him (Sinatra, Dean Martin) were considered passe and most record stores filed them away in the "easy listening" section along side Lawrence Welk and Liberace. Now all of that music once considered so square has suddenly become "hip" while 1970s pop, rock and disco sounds dated.

While Mr. Bennet's smooth and rich voice is perfectly suited to the more syrupy collaborations he made with Percy Faith and Mitch Miller, the other side of Tony Bennet is revealed here in this jazz anthology. Not only does he use his wonderful voice as a fine-tuned jazz instrument, he is also featured with a variety of jazz musicians who also make this CD a "who's who" of the genre.

I was lucky enough to see Mr. Bennet in concert a few years ago. He could tone it down or jazz it up, as he does in this compilation...also a classy guy and a class act.

They say Tony has got better with age and God knows he has outlasted all 'the greats' but this album just reminds us of how good he always was!!! Smooth as silk voice, fabulous arrangements.