{"id":240017,"date":"2023-07-24T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=240017"},"modified":"2023-07-24T13:17:27","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T12:17:27","slug":"tony-bennett-master-jazz-vocalist-dies-at-96","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/07\/tony-bennett-master-jazz-vocalist-dies-at-96\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Bennett, Master Jazz Vocalist, Dies at 96"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

21 Jul 2023 – <\/em>Tony Bennett<\/a>, the master pop vocalist who had a professional career spanning eight decades with a No. 1 album at age 85, died today in New York City. He was 96.<\/p>\n

Bennett was diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s disease in 2016, but had continued to perform and record through 2021.<\/p>\n

His peer Frank Sinatra called him the greatest popular singer in the world. His recordings \u2013 most of them made for Columbia Records, which signed him in 1950 \u2013 were characterized by ebullience, immense warmth, vocal clarity and emotional openness. A gifted and technically accomplished interpreter of the Great American Songbook, he may be best known for his signature 1962 hit \u201cI Left My Heart in San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was equally at home in front of intimate combos (which often featured his pianist and longtime musical director Ralph Sharon) and lushly arranged orchestras. Though never strictly a jazz singer, he flourished in jazz settings, and cut memorable sessions with Count Basie\u2019s big band and the lyrical pianist Bill Evans.<\/p>\n

Watch TMS<\/em> Music Video of the Week: A Tribute to Tony Bennett<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Active as a recording artist from 1949, and one of the top pop performers in the \u201850s and early \u201860s, Bennett saw his career surge anew in the \u201890s and again in the new millennium, under the management of his son Danny.<\/p>\n

In later years, he memorably dueted on the standard \u201cBody and Soul\u201d with Amy Winehouse, and released a full-length duet album with Diana Krall and a pair of recordings with Lady Gaga<\/a>. Even after the revelation in early 2021 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s, he remained active.<\/p>\n

His last public appearance came with Gaga at Radio City Music Hall in August 2021, two months before his last release, the Bennett-Gaga set \u201cLove for Sale,\u201d the sequel to their chart-topping 2014 collaboration \u201cCheek to Cheek.\u201d<\/p>\n

After gaining a young new audience with smartly booked TV appearances, his \u201cMTV Unplugged\u201d album of 1994 \u2014 released when Bennett was 67 \u2014 won a Grammy as album of the year. A pair of \u201cDuets\u201d albums in 2006 and 2011 enlisted new fans; the latter release reached the apex of the U.S. chart.<\/p>\n

Pondering Bennett\u2019s unprecedented artistic longevity and enduring popularity in \u201cA Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers,\u201d critic Will Friedwald wrote, \u201cThe idea that someone who sang the great show tunes of the Eisenhower era and earlier could compete with heavy metal and rap would have previously seemed fodder for one of those rapidly aging comics who opened for Sinatra.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winner of 18 Grammy Awards (with 36 total nominations), and a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient in 2001, Bennett also garnered two Emmy Awards. He was a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2005 and a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2006.<\/p>\n

The source of Bennett\u2019s generation-hopping appeal may be best summed up in an observation about his singing by composer and critic Alec Wilder: \u201cThere is a quality about it that lets you in.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was born Anthony Dominick Benedetto in Astoria, Queens, New York on Aug. 3, 1926, to Italian immigrant parents; his father was a grocer, his mother a seamstress. Raised in poverty, he began singing as a child, and studied music and his other lifelong love, painting, at New York\u2019s High School of Industrial Art. His vocal influences included Al Jolson, Bing Crosby and, later, Frank Sinatra, as well as such female singers as Billie Holiday and Judy Garland.<\/p>\n

Drafted at 18 in 1944, he served in World War II\u2019s European theater, doing combat infantry duty and liberating a German concentration camp. After the end of the conflict, he sang as a member of an Armed Forces band.<\/p>\n

On his return from service, he studied voice with Miriam Spier in the American Theatre Wing. He cut his first, unsuccessful sides for independent Leslie Records in 1949, as \u201cJoe Bari.\u201d<\/p>\n

A series of breaks raised his professional profile. An appearance on Arthur Godfrey\u2019s talent show (where he placed second to Rosemary Clooney) led to a 1949 TV shot on Jan Murray\u2019s \u201cSongs for Sale.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the strength of that appearance, songstress Pearl Bailey hired him as a club opener, and Bob Hope was in the Greenwich Village venue to catch the performance. Taking the youthful vocalist under his wing, Hope rechristened him Tony Bennett (an abbreviation and Americanization of his given name) and hired him for his stage show at New York\u2019s Paramount Theatre.<\/p>\n

In 1950, Bennett submitted a demo of Harry Warren\u2019s \u201cBoulevard of Broken Dreams\u201d to Columbia Records\u2019 head of A&R Mitch Miller, who signed him to the label and encouraged him to develop his own style.<\/p>\n

A remake of \u201cBoulevard\u201d was succeeded a trio of No. 1 pop singles: \u201cBecause of You\u201d (1951), a recasting of Hank Williams\u2019 country hit \u201cCold, Cold Heart\u201d (1951) and the exuberant \u201cRags to Riches\u201d (1953). The latter number was memorably used under the opening credits of Martin Scorsese\u2019s 1990 gangster epic \u201cGoodfellas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennett was a reliable if not top-flight hitmaker at Columbia during the \u201850s. He cut several noteworthy albums, including \u201cThe Beat of My Heart\u201d (1957), a percussive, jazz-inflected set featuring drummers Art Blakey, Chico Hamilton and Jo Jones; \u201cStrike Up the Band\u201d and \u201cIn Person!\u201d (both 1959), groundbreaking collaborations with the Count Basie Orchestra; and \u201cTony Sings for Two\u201d (1961), an intimate duo recital with pianist Sharon, who joined Bennett as musical director in 1957.<\/p>\n

It was Sharon who brought \u201cI Left My Heart in San Francisco,\u201d penned by his friends George Cory and Douglass Cross, to Bennett\u2019s concert book. Debuted during a December 1961 date at the Venetian Room of San Francisco\u2019s Fairmont Hotel, the number was issued as the B-side of \u201cOnce Upon a Time\u201d in 1962. DJs began spinning the flip side, and though the song climbed no higher than No. 19 on the singles chart, it pushed its like-titled album to No. 5 nationally. Bennett won his first Grammys with the song, reaping record of the year and best male solo vocal performance.<\/p>\n

A landmark 1962 concert at Carnegie Hall with Sharon\u2019s trio was followed in 1963 by the top 20 hits \u201cI Wanna Be Around\u201d and \u201cThe Good Life.\u201d But the ascent of rock on the charts shook Bennett\u2019s career; he was further unmoored when Sharon exited his employ in 1965, and he bridled at Columbia\u2019s attempts to \u201ccontemporize\u201d his sound. After some misbegotten albums and a run of singles that barely scraped the lower reaches of the chart, Bennett split with the label in 1971.<\/p>\n

Following a brief and unproductive association with MGM Records, Bennett started his own label, Improv. During this period, he cut a much-admired two-LP set of Rodgers & Hart songs and two celebrated duo albums with Bill Evans, both classics of vocal art. But, lacking proper distribution, Improv foundered in 1977.<\/p>\n

Without a label or manager, embroiled in a nasty divorce from his second wife, hounded by the IRS and grappling with a near-fatal cocaine addiction, Bennett was at a personal low when Danny Bennett assumed management of his father\u2019s career in 1980.<\/p>\n

A renaissance ensued. Booked by his son on such hip TV enterprises as \u201cThe David Letterman Show\u201d and the MTV Video Music Awards (with the Red Hot Chili Peppers), Bennett attained a fresh audience that was at best dimly aware of his earlier work. Returning to Columbia Records, he inaugurated a singular series of concept albums and renewed his work with Ralph Sharon. The widely admired album \u201cThe Art of Excellence\u201d (1986) returned him to the charts.<\/p>\n

He secured his renascent reputation with the Grammy-winning \u201cPerfectly Frank\u201d (1992) and \u201cSteppin\u2019 Out\u201d (1993), tributes to Sinatra and Fred Astaire, respectively. A hip-hop themed video for the latter album\u2019s title cut prefaced his triumphant \u201cMTV Unplugged\u201d special and album.<\/p>\n

Bennett maintained his pace as a perennial Grammy winner in the traditional pop vocal category through the \u201890s and into the new millennium, with popular albums devoted to female vocalists, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington and the blues. He waxed a Grammy-winning duet set, \u201cA Wonderful World,\u201d with K.D. Lang in 2002. He reunited with the Basie band in 2008 for \u201cA Swingin\u2019 Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

As his musical career continued its autumnal upswing, Bennett\u2019s profile as a painter also rose. He counted artist David Hockney among his admirers and close friends. His work was exhibited in galleries internationally, and his rendering of New York\u2019s Central Park hangs in the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. He published books about his art in 1996 and 2007. (An autobiography, \u201cThe Good Life,\u201d written with Will Friedwald, was issued in 1998.)<\/p>\n

Bennett collected primetime Emmys for his recitals \u201cLive by Request\u201d (1996) and \u201cAn American Classic\u201d (2007). He dipped his toe into acting with appearances on the \u201860s detective show \u201c77 Sunset Strip\u201d and a featured role in \u201cThe Oscar\u201d (1966).<\/p>\n

Though his gleaming, soaring tenor darkened into a burnished, grainy baritone in the later years of his career, Bennett never lost his interpretive skills. Nowhere was his continuing agility demonstrated more ably than on his two \u201cDuets\u201d collections, which challengingly paired him with a panoply of much younger stars. The second collection hit the top of the charts with a 179,000-copy debut week in September 2011, making Bennett the oldest performer in history to release a No. 1 album.<\/p>\n

He is survived by his wife Susan Benedetto, his two sons, Danny and Dae Bennett, his daughters Johanna Bennett and Antonia Bennett, and nine grandchildren.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – variety.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

21 Jul 2023 – Bennett had a professional career spanning eight decades. Winner of 18 Grammy Awards (with 36 total nominations), and a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient in 2001, he also garnered two Emmy Awards and was a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2005 and a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2006. RIP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":240018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[226],"tags":[1142],"class_list":["post-240017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituaries","tag-obituary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240017"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240088,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240017\/revisions\/240088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}