![\"Tony-Bennett-and-Antonia-Bennett-2\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Tony-Bennett-and-Antonia-Bennett-2.jpg\")
Do the math and he\u2019s 87, but better make that 87 years young: Tony Bennett looks, moves, and above all else, sings better than he did back in, say, 1964, when he recorded Live At The Sahara: Las Vegas, 1964<\/i>.<\/p>\nDo the math and he\u2019s 87, but better make that 87 years young: Tony Bennett looks, moves, and above all else, sings better than he did back in, say, 1964, when he recorded Live At The Sahara: Las Vegas, 1964<\/i>.<\/p>\n
That album, not coincidentally, was issued last week, three days before Bennett\u2019s concert at Radio City, which had been sold out since July. He did two songs that he did at The Sahara, the swinging \u201cSing, You Sinners,\u201d which he cut in 1950\u2014and again, with John Legend, for his 2006 Duets: An American Classic<\/i> album\u2014and \u201cOnce Upon A Time,\u201d a melancholy gem by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams from the 1962 musical All American<\/i>.<\/p>\n
![\"Tony-Bennett-Live-at-the-Sahara-sm\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Tony-Bennett-Live-at-the-Sahara-sm.jpg\")
Not to knock the early performances, which have plenty of pep; after all, he was 37 back then\u2014half a century ago. But especially on \u201cOnce Upon A Time\u201d at Radio City last week, he invested lines like \u201cHow we always laughed as though tomorrow wasn\u2019t there\u201d and \u201cBut somehow once upon a time, never comes again\u201d with a depth of emotional invention\u2014and commitment\u2014that clearly comes from 50 added years of experience.<\/p>\n
Like all of Bennett\u2019s concerts\u2014and I\u2019ve seen countless\u2014he also brought a spontaneous playfulness to songs like \u201cSteppin\u2019 Out,\u201d the 1993 title track of his album tribute to Fred Astaire, and Stephen Sondheim\u2019s \u201cOld Friends,\u201d which he performs with his daughter Antonia Bennett.<\/p>\n
Antonia, by the way, has been opening Dad\u2019s shows the last several years, during which she\u2019s developed into a major talent in her own right.<\/p>\n
![\"Tony-Bennett\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Tony-Bennett.jpg\")
\u201cIt\u2019s thrilling to get to spend so much time with him as a daughter and as an artist,\u201d she said, in between pop standards lifted from her father\u2019s songbook like \u201cEmbraceable You\u201d and an especially lovely reading of Noel Coward\u2019s \u201cSail Away.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve learned so much from him standing in the wings every night and watching.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not only has Antonia learned from her father, she\u2019s added to his vast legacy. Maybe his next duets album should be with her. Better yet, he should do a live album, now that he\u2019s putting out old ones (Live At The Sahara<\/i> was preceded earlier this year by Bennett\/Brubeck\u2014The White House Sessions, Live 1962<\/i>). He hasn\u2019t done one since forever, not with his now longtime backup band of Lee Musiker on piano, guitarist Gray Sargent, bassist Marshall Wood and drummer Harold Jones. They\u2019re all exceptional in their own right (Musiker played with Buddy Rich, among others, and Jones was Count Basie\u2019s favorite drummer), and Bennett needs to have a record of his extraordinary longevity as a concert performer to cap his career as a recording artist.<\/p>\n
Jim Bessman<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TONY BENNETT & ANTONIA BENNETT The incomparable Tony Bennett\u2019s Longevity and Legacy Do the math and he\u2019s 87, but better make that 87 years young: Tony Bennett looks, moves, and above all else, sings better than he did back in, say, 1964, when he recorded Live At The Sahara: Las Vegas, 1964. That album, not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4976],"tags":[7252,3674],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11018"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11018"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11028,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11018\/revisions\/11028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}