Tony Bennett has so many adoring celebrity fans it should come as no surprise that when a major duets album is planned, he's able to draw a roster of the biggest recording stars from the rock and vocal worlds, plus a pair of country music wildcards. (This despite the fact that he recorded an album with several duets in 2001, and a full-album ...
The 20 tracks on this anthology cover Bennett's entire career at Columbia, from his 1951 number one single "Because of You" to "Mood Indigo" from 1999's Hot and Cool: Bennett Sings Ellington. Note, however, that "entire career at Columbia" is not synonymous with Bennett's entire career, as there's nothing representing the span between the mid-'60s ...
Like most entries in Sony/Legacy's Essential series, 2002's The Essential Tony Bennett is an excellent, exhaustive retrospective of a lengthy, hit-filled career at Columbia. Although Bennett spent time at other labels -- particularly in the '70s -- he made his best-known and greatest recordings for Columbia, from the late '50s through the '90s, ...
The Now series is known for crossing the boundaries of record labels in its attempt to provide definitive collections of hits -- usually from contemporary hits, but also of different eras and styles from the past (at least in its U.K. incarnation). Thankfully, the double-disc, 36-track collection Now That's What I Call Christmas! lives up to the ...
Tony Bennett has sung with k.d. lang previously, notably on his MTV Unplugged album, and the two have meshed well together, largely because of lang's willingness to sublimate herself to Bennett's approach. The same thing can be said of the two on this full-length duet album (which also contains solos -- Bennett is heard alone on "That's My Dream," ...
A different sort of Tony Bennett compilation than the usual, Sings the Ultimate American Songbook, Vol. 1 packages 15 performances, spanning five decades, that comprise, from Bennett's brief notes, "A revolution in popular music that will never be topped." (He's speaking, of course, about the American songbook and not his performing career.) While ...
With British arranger/conductor Robert Farnon handling the transatlantic sessions, Tony Bennett's 1968 Christmas album turned into a swinging affair, from the version of "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music (how did this song become associated with Christmas?) to seasonal standards like "White Christmas" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little ...
Having completed his relatively brief sojourn with MGM/Verve with 1973's Listen Easy, Tony Bennett was in the midst of forming his own label, Improv Records, when he made a deal with jazz pianist Bill Evans to cut two LPs, this one for Evans' label, Fantasy Records, with another to follow on Improv. The singer and his collaborator ("accompanist" ...
This album marked Tony Bennett's return to recording after half a dozen years, his return to Columbia Records after 14 years, and the beginning of the third stage in his career. Back with the Ralph Sharon Trio and backed by The U.K. Orchestra, Bennett demonstrated that he had spent his time off from recording gathering a bunch of good songs and ...
16 Most Requested Songs is a nice, budget-priced collection of Tony Bennett's hits that provides an adequate introduction, but it is far from a definitive collection. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Bennett's tribute to songs that Fred Astaire made famous (including standards by Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and Jerome Kern) is as strong a record as anything he has made recently, including the acclaimed Perfectly Frank. ~ All Music Guide, All Music Guide
With British arranger/conductor Robert Farnon handling the transatlantic sessions, Tony Bennett's 1968 Christmas album turned into a swinging affair, from the version of "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music (how did this song become associated with Christmas?) to seasonal standards like "White Christmas" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little ...
Tony Bennett returned to the Top 40 in late 1964 with his version of the Leslie Bricusse-Anthony Newley anthem "Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)," from Newley's Broadway show The Roar Of The Greasepaint, The Smell Of The Crowd. That song, like the rest of this album, was arranged and conducted by George Siravo, who made detailed ballad ...
CBS Special Products first assembled this ten-track budget compilation of Tony Bennett's Columbia Records recordings spanning 1951-1971 in 1982, and it has been reissued periodically since, first by Sony Music Special Products (after Sony bought and renamed CBS Records) and then under license to Collectables Records for its Priceless Collection ...
As discount compilations go, this one is just fine. There are 10 songs, and the album runs 27 minutes, so don't expect to pay anything like full price. But among the 10 tracks are such Tony Bennett hits as "I Left My Heart In San Francisco," "Just In Time," "The Good Life," and "Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words)." There are also some good ...
Few vocalists have earned what Tony Bennett enjoys: the absolute authority of recording exactly what he wants, exactly the way he wants. And when recording an album of love songs, easily the most common of all conceptual works, no other singer would have the talent to capture both the edges and the subtleties to make what has been tried, many ...
This Christmas jazz CD contains 14 performances, a dozen of them not available on other sets. The two exceptions are Tony Bennett's 1987 "White Christmas" (which contains one of tenor-saxophonist Dexter Gordon's last recordings, a brief and weak statement) and Wynton Marsalis's "Winter Wonderland." Other musicians who are featured include Harry ...
This is a 10-song, discount-priced sampler released by CBS Records' Special Products division. While it contains some good Tony Bennett performances, it makes for a nearly random 30 minutes of his music. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
Do You Hear What I Hear is a solid 15-track collection with a more traditional emphasis than many contemporary Christmas discs -- highlights include Barbra Streisand's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," Tony Bennett's "The Christmas Song," Johnny Mathis' "Do You Hear What I Hear?" and Engelbert Humperdinck's "Winter Wonderland." ~ Marvin ...
During his six decades of professional life, Tony Bennett has proved himself to be a vocalist with tremendous dedication to popular song. Appropriately, his volume in the Starbucks/Columbia Artist's Choice series finds him choosing selections from that canon, all of them given distinctive, definitive readings by most of the great vocalists of the ...
This two-CD set is recorded concert performance at its best. Originally recorded in 1962, Tony Bennett at Carnegie Hall is a testament to Bennett's live vocal ability. Backed by the Ralph Sharon Orchestra, Bennett moves far beyond his standard musical catalogue. Along with standards like "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" and "Just in Time," ...
When the first version of this impressive box set was originally released in 1991 (as Forty Years: The Artistry of Tony Bennett), it put the capstone upon Tony Bennett's remarkable return to prominence by looking back at a legacy that had been overshadowed by that of the colossus Sinatra. The collection methodically traced his career from his ...
Tony Bennett's departure from Columbia Records after 22 years in 1972 inspired the label to put together a one-volume hits compilation (originally released on two LPs) of 20 songs covering his entire Columbia output, from "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and the early hits like "Because of You" and "Rags to Riches," through the early- to mid-'60s hit ...
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