At first glance, a collection of 87 songs from crooner Tony Bennett seems more than anyone wants to hear - including Tony Bennett.
But then this isn't a "best of" anthology, it's a "most of." Columbia wanted to bring out the definitive collection and have it done.What keeps "Forty Years" from sinking under its own weight is the fact it's available on CD. Modern technology allows listeners to program their machines to skip the dross and dregs and keep playing the keepers. They can "skim the cream" in other words.
And "Forty Years" has plenty of cream.
True, there are forgettable numbers here. `Tender Is the Night," "It Was Me," "When Joanna Loved Me" are all examples of pop music by
RECORD the yard; mindless tunes laced with lyrics void of even one original thought.
But the junk is quickly overshadowed by the heirlooms.
Take "Lost in the Stars," for example, a piece by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson from their musical "Cry the Beloved Country." The song is the out-pourings of a black minister in South Africa who's just learned his son has committed a murder. Pretty heady stuff. And Bennett sings it with restraint and power. "A Sleepin' Bee" - with words by Truman Capote - recasts Diahann Carroll's signature piece and a live cut of "Old Devil Moon" from London's Albert Hall spices the stew.
Bennett also takes the teeny-bopper hit "Blue Velvet" and shows what a real singer can do with a mediocre song. He blows the bobby socks off Vinton and Vee. The Cole Porter numbers sizzle (especially when Art Blakey is on the drums) and even country music's "Cold Cold Heart," with its Atkins-style alternate bass in the orchestra, musters some charm.
"I Left My Heart in San Francisco" has always served as a tidy bookend to Sinatra's "New York, New York." Bennett calls it his favorite song, though it never got above No. 19 on the charts. It's also a song that points up Bennett's lot in life - singing counter-point to Sinatra's soaring career. For many, Tony Bennett will always be the saloon singer crooning in the shadows of late-night clubs and cabarets, an Italian boy without Frankie's eyes or mystique. But this release confirms him as one of America's finest - and often under-rated - pop stylists. Throaty, hip, with his larynx between his teeth and his heart on his sleeve, Bennett goes to the bank on his talent for shaping a song to his liking. On "It Had to Be You," for example, he often robs from one measure so he can give listeners the pay off in another. He anticipates the beat, then drags behind, talks through a line, dips into blues and scat and comes out on top.
It's been said he sings "nostalgia" better than any singer alive.
After hearing "September Song," "The Very Thought of You" and "May I Never Love Again" it would be hard to argue with the claim.
The collection comes with a fine booklet full of hazy photos and Bennett's comments on each song. There are also short appreciations from musicians such as Ralph Sharon and Leonard Feather and a full slate of information on each recording.
But more than anything else, "Forty Years" shows us that the music Americans believed was now dated (all those sleazy trombones and muted trumpets, for instance) is not dated at all.
It's classic.