Arguably one of the most influential and longest lasting brilliant singers who was uniquely capable of crossing multiple generations of song, all while retaining that same smile.  The legendary and irreplaceable Tony Bennett has died at the age of 96.  Wow, what a life!

In the latter part of his career, with incredible and smooth duets with female pop stars (1990 – 2020), I once remarked that Bennett’s specific style of charm reminded me of a human Quokka, simply because of that incredible and authentic smile he carried.  The guy was a class act.

Shine on Mr. Bennett. The sounds in heaven just got a whole lot more jazzed…

(Variety) […] 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’s 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.

Drafted at 18 in 1944, he served in World War II’s 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.

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 “Joe Bari.”

A series of breaks raised his professional profile. An appearance on Arthur Godfrey’s talent show (where he placed second to Rosemary Clooney) led to a 1949 TV shot on Jan Murray’s “Songs for Sale.”

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’s Paramount Theatre.

In 1950, Bennett submitted a demo of Harry Warren’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” to Columbia Records’ head of A&R Mitch Miller, who signed him to the label and encouraged him to develop his own style.

A remake of “Boulevard” was succeeded a trio of No. 1 pop singles: “Because of You” (1951), a recasting of Hank Williams’ country hit “Cold, Cold Heart” (1951) and the exuberant “Rags to Riches” (1953). The latter number was memorably used under the opening credits of Martin Scorsese’s 1990 gangster epic “Goodfellas.”

Bennett was a reliable if not top-flight hitmaker at Columbia during the ‘50s. He cut several noteworthy albums, including “The Beat of My Heart” (1957), a percussive, jazz-inflected set featuring drummers Art Blakey, Chico Hamilton and Jo Jones; “Strike Up the Band” and “In Person!” (both 1959), groundbreaking collaborations with the Count Basie Orchestra; and “Tony Sings for Two” (1961), an intimate duo recital with pianist Sharon, who joined Bennett as musical director in 1957.

It was Sharon who brought “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” penned by his friends George Cory and Douglass Cross, to Bennett’s concert book. Debuted during a December 1961 date at the Venetian Room of San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel, the number was issued as the B-side of “Once Upon a Time” 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.

A landmark 1962 concert at Carnegie Hall with Sharon’s trio was followed in 1963 by the top 20 hits “I Wanna Be Around” and “The Good Life.” But the ascent of rock on the charts shook Bennett’s career; he was further unmoored when Sharon exited his employ in 1965, and he bridled at Columbia’s attempts to “contemporize” 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. (read more)

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