[Dixielandjazz] Tony Bennett, swinging at the Met.

[Stephen G Barbone]

Swinging and Growling to an Optimistic Beat

NY TIMES - By STEPHEN HOLDEN - Sept 19, 2011


It says everything about Tony Bennett that his Metropolitan Opera  
concert on Sunday evening was an intimate, no-frills affair: a great  
popular singer and his quartet casually doing what they do better than  
anybody else.

There was no symphony orchestra or last-minute gospel chorus pumping  
grandiosity into an evening that was partly a belated celebration of  
Mr. Bennett’s 85th birthday (Aug. 3). That he and his group are  
supreme exponents of the American songbook was a given. Most of the  
two dozen or so songs in a 90-minute set received standing ovations.

The qualities that define Mr. Bennett — simplicity, humility and a  
rock-bottom sense of swing, reminiscent of Count Basie’s — conjure an  
optimistic American spirit that has little to do with the  
hypercompetitive excesses of our new gilded age and its young American  
idols. Mr. Bennett doesn’t compete; he has no need to. As his special  
guests — Aretha Franklin (“How Do You Keep the Music Playing?”),  
Alejandro Sanz (“Yesterday I Heard the Rain”) and Elton John (“If I  
Ruled the World”) — arrived onstage to join voices with him, they  
harmonized with the relaxed camaraderie and mutual respect of  
colleagues sharing songs.

You had the sense of Mr. Bennett, poised, calm and good-humored, as a  
lighthouse in the middle of a churning musical sea, illuminating the  
way for all approaching ships.

Vocally there were two Tony Bennetts: a stealthy, conversational  
swinger who infused “I Got Rhythm,” and “Sing You Sinners” with a  
springing pulse, and the robust, semioperatic tenor on numerous  
ballads whose high notes, usually hit hard, were remarkably intact.

As an interpreter, Mr. Bennett cuts to the chase, building songs from  
quiet reflections to grand finales, sharply accenting key words like  
“heart” and “love.” On “For Once in My Life” he sang the phrase  
“someone who needs me” with the passion of a man savoring a last,  
desperate chance at love that has ended triumphantly. His verbal  
accents are a kind of aggressive shorthand conveying exactly what he  
wants to say; there are no double meanings. “Love” is love, and  
“heart” is heart.

A typical number had a beginning, a middle and a climactic end that  
was usually, but not always, an assertion of optimism. “The Way You  
Look Tonight”concluded with a repeated exclamation, “tonight, tonight,  
tonight” that both addressed the occasion and expressed a belief in  
relishing the moment. The revenge fantasy “I Wanna Be Around” was  
appended with a ferociously growled “yeah.” But even that burst of  
hostility was more euphoric than angry.

Mr. Bennett maintained a fluid, easygoing relationship with the group:  
his musical director and pianist, Lee Musiker; the guitarist Gray  
Sargent; the drummer Harold Jones; and the bassist Marshall Wood. The  
concert’s missing orchestral dimension was supplied by Mr. Musiker’s  
florid, crashing piano solos (on “Maybe This Time” and “How Do You  
Keep the Music Playing?”) that had the heft and romantic sweep of  
miniature Rachmaninoff piano concertos. In Mr. Bennett’s quieter duets  
with Mr. Sargent (especially “The Shadow of Your Smile”), the guitar  
gently cuddled up to his voice.

Among the three duets the happiest surprise was Ms. Franklin’s  
contribution to “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?,” in which her  
shivering airborne melismas underlined the lyrics’ fearful  
vulnerability. In the song’s second statement, after Mr. Musiker’s  
solo, their voices entwined in a grand upward spiral.

That duet was stronger and more coherent than it is on Mr. Bennett’s  
mostly wonderful new album, “Duets II” (RPM/Columbia), to be released  
on Tuesday. On the album’s 17 songs, Mr. Bennett’s singing partners  
run the gamut from semiclassical (Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli) to  
country (Willie Nelson, Carrie Underwood).

To varying degrees all the duets are conversations, the more  
spontaneous and freewheeling, the better. On “Body and Soul” the voice  
of Amy Winehouse, who suggests a sensual combination of Dinah  
Washington and late-’50s Billie Holiday, crackles with vitality,  
enthusiasm and hard experience. “The Lady Is a Tramp,” with Lady Gaga,  
is a playful give-and-take of improvised remarks, in which she  
displays her considerable chops as a hard-edged pop-jazz singer.

“Blue Velvet,” with K. D. Lang, becomes the singers’ mutual  
reminiscence of a dream girl or a beloved matriarch (it could be  
both), in which they croon, “And we still can see blue velvet in our  
dreams.” On “Speak Low,” another high point, Norah Jones, sounding  
sophisticated and very grown-up, supplies a moist heat, while Mr.  
Bennett’s hammering of the word “thief” in the phrase “time is a  
thief” distills the song’s emotional urgency.

Because the singers were in the studio with Mr. Bennett, “Duets II”  
conveys the freshness of spontaneous interaction. It’s really alive.  
Sitting side by side, the singers engage in the kind of friendly  
intergenerational dialogue that is good for music.