[Dixielandjazz] Tony Bennett / Great American Songbook / PBS

[Steve Barbone]

Next Wednesday, "The Music Never Ends" premieres on PBS TV in the New York
City Area. Check you local listings. It's not Dixieland, but it surely is
OKOM and a wonderful example of a man who re-invented himself to appeal to
the "new" audience. (younger generations).

A those who may have met Tony Bennett will agree, he is an incredible man in
every way. This TV special should be extraordinary.

Yes indeed, the music never ends, only the musicians. <grin>

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


September 6,  2007
 
To: Listings/Critics/Features

THIRTEEN/WNET NEW YORK¹S AMERICAN  MASTERS CELEBRATES THE GREAT AMERICAN
SONGBOOK AND ITS AMBASSADOR TO  THE WORLD WITH TONY BENNETT: THE MUSIC NEVER
ENDS, PREMIERING  SEPTEMBER 12 ON PBS

A Clint Eastwood Presentation Directed By Bruce Ricker
 
Features Interviews With  Alec Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, Mel Brooks, Martin
Scorsese, And Gay  Talese
Performances Of ³Old Devil Moon,² ³Steppin¹ Out,² ³In A Mellow  Tone,² ³I
Got Rhythm,² ³The Best Is Yet To Come,² ³I Left My Heart In San  Francisco²;
And Classic Clips from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny  Carson, Playboy
After Dark, The Danny Thomas Show, And  The Doris Day Show
 
Amid the sylvan setting of  the 2005 Monterey Jazz Festival, legendary
performer Tony Bennett is singing  Fly Me to the Moon before a
record-setting crowd when the clouds part  to reveal the splendor of a full
moon. It is a golden moment for the iconic  crooner and for his enraptured
audience, which includes Clint Eastwood. The  next day at Eastwood¹s Mission
Ranch, the two music lovers talk as if trading  jazz riffs in the first of
several filmed conversations about starting out and  starting over,
heartaches and triumphs, great songs and old friends.   Their casual musings
are a highlight of AMERICAN MASTERS  Tony Bennett: The Music Never Ends,
which  premieres Wednesday, September 12 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check  local
listings).   

Throughout  his career, Bennett sampled the best of Manhattan jazz clubs,
Hollywood  musicals and Tin Pan Alley, moving effortlessly from Count Basie
and Bill  Evans to Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Cole Porter.  In The
Music Never Ends, Bennett¹s evident gifts are on full display.

³The key  to this project is a basic appreciation for this rich treasure
trove of music  ­ it¹s a cavalcade of classic show business  performances,²
says Lacy.  ³Tony Bennett is a troubadour whose talent has enriched  our
lives for generations.²

³From  the first time I heard ŒBecause of You¹ on the radio, Tony Bennett¹s
been the  one singer I can listen to again and again,² says producer Clint
Eastwood. ³What I love most about this film is the way it acknowledges
Tony¹s  contribution.  He deserves to be recognized among the best."

³I  wanted to place Tony and his musical career within the framework of the
Great  American Songbook,² says Bruce Ricker, who directed AMERICAN MASTERS
Clint  Eastwood: Out of the Shadows in 2000. ³He¹s very aware of the  beauty
of American music and he really is the one carrying that torch  forward.²

The  man Frank Sinatra called ³the best singer in the business² has sold 50
million  records and earned 15 Grammy awards, including two at age 80. The
story of a common man with an uncommon gift, the film includes performances
from the 2005 Monterey Jazz Festival and interviews at Bennett¹s Manhattan
home and at a Warner Brothers sound stage in Los Angeles.

Bennett¹s life and music is amplified by a rich historical  archive and the
voices of numerous close friends, including director Arthur  Penn, who
shares memories of World War II, and Harry Belafonte, who marched  with
Bennett from Selma, Alabama during the height of the Civil Rights era. The
Music Never Ends includes rarely-seen footage of  Bennett and Belafonte
rubbing noses ­ film shot in 1965 by the Alabama State  Sovereignty
Commission, a state agency empowered to investigate ³race mixing.²

Oscar-winning  editor Joel Cox (Unforgiven) pays visual  tribute to the way
entertainers like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire  enriched Bennett¹s creative
journey.  With a nod to Bennett¹s  career-changing 1962 Carnegie Hall
concert, Cox created an ambitious montage  based on ³Lullaby of Broadway,²
the opening number from the live concert album. The sequence features clips
of Bennett performing the same song  across several decades, from The Steve
Allen and Ed Sullivan  shows to the 2004 Tony Awards. Homage to Hollywood ­
a dance sequence from The Gold Diggers of 1935 ­ adds a final flourish.

The  film relies exclusively on Great American Songbook standards to
illustrate  stories from Bennett¹s life. Duke Ellington¹s ³In a Mellow Tone²
provides the  backdrop for the defining moment of his youth ­ the  death of
his father when Bennett was 10, which  forced his mother to support her
three children by sewing for a penny a dress.   New and old versions of ³Old
Devil Moon² underscore the way  African-American jazz musicians imprinted
Bennett¹s  style from the start.

Bennett  learned to put on the best show possible from an uncle in
vaudeville, a work  ethic he¹s honored throughout his career.  A  variety of
classic clips in The Music Never Ends illustrate his  diversity and
flexibility: performing ³I Left My Heart in San Francisco² with  Judy
Garland in 1963, recording ³Everybody Has the Blues² with Ray Charles in
1986, singing the national anthem at the 1998 World Series, and spoofing his
own image in a 2006 Saturday Night Live skit with Alec Baldwin.

>From  one decade to the next, Bennett has confronted changing tastes,
triumphing by doing what he does best:  sing. In 1979,  without a manager or
a record label and on the verge of bankruptcy, he turned  to his son, Danny,
for guidance. Danny Bennett, who appears in the film, began  managing his
father¹s career and helped reinvent him for the MTV  generation.

³To  quote Duke Ellington, there¹s only two kinds of music ­ there¹s only
good and  bad ­ and if he loved a musician he said they were beyond
category,² says jazz  pianist Bill Charlap in The Music Never Ends.  ³Tony
Bennett is beyond  category.²

AMERICAN MASTERS Tony Bennett: The Music Never Ends  is directed by Bruce
Ricker; produced by Clint Eastwood and Ricker, in  association with RPM
Productions and Thirteen/WNET New York¹s AMERICAN  MASTERS; written by Nick
Tosches and Ricker; edited by Joel Cox; and  executive produced by Ted
Sarandos.  Susan Lacy is creator and executive  producer of AMERICAN
MASTERS.  

AMERICAN  MASTERS is produced for PBS by Thirteen/WNET New York.  This
acclaimed series, now celebrating its 21st season, has become a cultural
legacy in its own right.  The AMERICAN MASTERS film library  is one of the
most highly honored in television history with profiles of more  than 140
artistic giants.  In addition to eight Peabodys, an Oscar, a
duPont-Columbia and two Grammys, AMERICAN MASTERS has won 17  Emmys,
including Outstanding Primetime Non-Fiction Series for 1999, 2000,  2001,
2003, and 2004.