TONY BENNETT

[rye]

Jazz legend Tony Bennett will be performing on The Casino Monday, August 16th on Fox at 9 pm et/pt and 8 pm central.

[Videoskooter]

Damn-too far away from here :cry: I can't get those airwaves.

I luuuuuve Tony.

Sinatra-Martin-Benett: the golden boys.

[judydoggie]

One of the things that's amazed me after hearing all of the things that have been done to a disco beat (Remember Stravinsky's "Firebird" suite -- I forget who the artist was) is that NOBODY's dared mix anything disco with Tony, Frank, Dean, Sammy, etc.

If you have broadband, wait for the musical background on this page on my site to load. I was in a studio in New Jersey when a friend in the biz kindly gave me a raw compact disc of this very, very rare live recording (someone had gotten their hands on it). They were putting together one of those "Ratpack" video cassette collections that they sell on the TV via "800" numbers late at night. Click on this link:

http://asianfusion.net/SzeTok/ratpack.htm

After watching a few hours of movieola reels and 35mm film of the performances, they pulled out the 1" Ampex tape of this pearl of a performance, never filmed, just audio taped by chance. After the engineer carefully insinuated the tape into the machine, we listened as it was played back into a digital recorder for mastering. At the end of the brief piece, four out of the six of us found ourselves dabbing at tears in our eyes.

The rest of the stuff was easy handle emotionally 'cause there was something on the screens in front of us. This, we realized, we'd have to listen to without having anything to look at except each other, realizing that we were hearing something no more or less special than the rest of what we'd heard -- but without the comic relief that the antics of Sinatra, Davis and the rest provided. Moreover, without anything to look at; I, for one, found my mind filled with great memories of all of 'em, running around on stage, having a ball. Musically, The only better work between Sinatra and Sammy Davis was the studio version of "Me and My Shadow" they did in the early '60s.

Finally, If you really want to hear something by Tony Bennett that's special, pick up a copy of his Columbia 1986 release "The Art of Excellence." Beside some of the best versions of jazz standards he's ever done, in my humble opinion (including the fabulous Legrand/Bergman song "How Do You Keep The Music Playing"), he performs a duet with Ray Charles that's absolutely amazing. It's called "Everybody Has The Blues" and was originally written by none other than James Taylor! It's fresh, true blues, and the vibe that comes through is that they're genuinely having a whole lot of fun recording the tune. The material's a whole lot better than the previews I've heard recently of the posthumous Ray Charles album that's coming out next week. And it's even better than Bennett's "Playin' With My Friends." Pick up "The Art of Excellence." It's still in print: Columbia CK40344.