Tony Bennett - The Art Of Romance (2004)
Исполнитель: Tony Bennett
Название альбома: The Art Of Romance
Год выпуска: 2004
Формат файлов: MP3 CBR 320
Размер архива: 105 mb включая 3% на восст.
Скачать с: mail.ru
Review by John Bush
Few vocalists have earned what Tony Bennett enjoys: the absolute authority of recording exactly
what he wants, exactly the way he wants. And when recording an album of love songs, easily the
most common of all conceptual works, no other singer would have the talent to capture both the
edges and the subtleties to make what has been tried, many times, sound true. But this is a quality
that Bennett — never a jazz singer, always a "song" singer — has possessed throughout his career.
The Art of Romance is a record, as described by producer Phil Ramone, "that communicates with
those in love, out of love and everywhere in-between." Love isn't all rosy, of course, and it's
rendered in such saloon-song soft-focus by Bennett and his small group (plus light string accompaniment)
that it never sounds passe — an achievement in itself. Many of these are love songs with a crooked
smile, whether it's a brief celebrity-page linking that unexpectedly turns into love ("All in Fun") or
songs about the end of love, such as "Where Do You Start" and "I Remember You," a pair of evocative
ballads charting love leaving and love only half-remembered. Ironically, Bennett contributes one
of the most tender songs, making his debut as a composer on "All for You" with a set of lyrics to
one of his favorite tunes, Django Reinhardt's gypsy-jazz classic "Nuages." Remarkably, The Art of
Romance marks the debut of these 11 songs in his recorded repertoire. While a few are classics that
are nearly as old as Bennett himself, many of them are rarely performed nuggets from the post-vocal
era, by such composers as Johnny Mandel, Stephen Sondheim, and Alan and Marilyn Bergman.
("Time to Smile," a buoyant, inspirational piece, marks the debut of the song in anyone's recorded
repertoire; it's an older composition by Johnny Mercer and Geoffrey Clarkson only discovered in 2004.)
Approaching the age of 80, Tony Bennett has only a few grains in his voice and a bit of strain in the
energy of his performances, nothing that a listener wouldn't be able to forgive of a man 25 years younger.
Track List:
01. Close Enough for Love (Mandel, Williams) 4:28
02. All in Fun (Hammerstein, Kern) 4:08
03. Where Do You Start (Bergman, Bergman, Mandel) 3:42
04. Little Did I Dream (Frishberg, Mandel) 3:45
05. I Remember You (Mercer, Schertzinger) 5:06
06. Time to Smile (Clarkson, Mercer) 3:24
07. All for You (Bennett, Reinhardt) 4:35
08. The Best Man (Alfred, Wise) 2:52
09. Don't Like Goodbyes (Arlen, Capote) 4:15
10. Being Alive (Sondheim) 3:52
11. Gone With the Wind (Magidson, Wrubel) 4:16
