Show Review - 'Tony Bennett'‏

Tony Bennett, dapper and smart, wearing a perfectly pressed
dark suit with red pocket square, finally closed in excellent
style, after a long-awaited 5 months, the Montreal Jazz Festival.
A little humor from André Menard (founder of the festival),
as he announced the final leg of the festival. He had postponed
his June 30 performance because the singer had agreed to take
part in a special 80th-birthday television special in his honor.
On his 80th birthday, Tony Bennett can boast of conquering
the charts for more than five decades. But after a lifetime of
accolades and countless hits, he says he still struggles with
the most basic of his art form's skills, reading sheet music.
Walking out at 8:30 p.m., after Kelli-Lee (an Ottawa native),
who opened for the legendary crooner, just a few steps behind
his quartet, the audience rose, a roaring, whooping standing
ovation, with few sporadic shouts of 'Tony! We love you!'
when they saw him.
Bennett moved to center stage, bowed and broke into a huge
smile. He never stopped beaming the rest of the night. The
octogenarian Bennett, dazzled the audience at Salle Wilfrid
Pelletier of Place des Arts. One, very excited, woman shouted,
'Marry Me Tony!' I'm sure his age is beginning to show. He
moved a little slower, and sang just a little quieter, but
he was still in the kind of form you'd be a fool to undersell.
To see him up close, to see him at the helm of his longtime
quartet is perhaps the greatest thrill of all, mike firmly
in his left hand, so often chest high, his right gesturing
and accenting and intimating nearly every nuance for his
colleagues, pianist Lee Musiker, guitarist Gray Sargent,
bassist Paul Langosch and drummer Harold Jones.
He opened with 'Watch What Happens' and very quickly went,
from one familiar tune to the next, 'All of Me, I Got Rhythm,
Speak Low', a typical and still immensely pleasing tour of
the Great American Song Book. There was even a spot for his
early '50s hit, Hank William's 'Cold, Cold Heart', and plenty
of that irreplaceable banter. He reminisced about his first
days in Greenwich Village in the late '40s, discovered there
by singer Pearl Bailey, and given his name, Bennett for
Benedetto, by Bob Hope. "He got a big kick out of me," Bennett
remembered, to instant laughter, "because I was the only
white guy in the show." Before you were born, heck, maybe
before your parents were born, Tony Bennett and Rosemary
Clooney, were television's original American Idol. "I started
that way (on TV) with Rosemary Clooney, years ago," Bennett
said.
In a recent interview he declared, "We were the first
American Idols, in the '50s. That's when television was just
black and white. We got a break on an amateur show, and as
a result it started us off. Bob Hope picked us up, and we
went on the road with him," said Bennett. "He gave me my
name, Tony Bennett. He thought Anthony Dominick Benedetto
was too long for the marquee." The rest, as they say, is
history, decades upon decades of history, culminating last
week with the release of 'Tony Bennett: Duets, An American
Classic', a compilation of 18 standards made famous by Bennett
that have him crooning side by side with the likes of Bono,
Elton John, The Dixie Chicks, Barbra Streisand and Canada's
own Michael Bublé. Unlike some 'duets' that have two singers
record their tracks at different times in different locations,
Bennett insisted that his partners be side by side with him
in the studio, with the song recorded in just a handful of
takes. Bennett said, "That Michael Bublé, is a good kid. He
respects the old masters," Bennett said. 'He's got a lot on
the ball. He's my favorite singer these days of the young
contemporary artists."
Bennett's career has reached a new zenith in this his 81st
year, with the duets album, a documentary on his life being
produced by Clint Eastwood, a TV special airing this fall
directed by 'Chicago' helmer Rob Marshall, and even a painting
of Bennett's added to the Smithsonian's collection. Not bad
for a guy who got his big break singing on TV. But to this day,
nothing beats a live audience. 'They became my greatest teachers,
the audience,' he said, 'It's addictive. You can't wait for
the next audience, to give them a good show.'