Bennett’s long-time collaborators Jorge Calandrelli and Marion Evans (also aged 95) ensure that double basses prowl like alley cats in tuxedos and strings swirl like satin skirts. The lively, old-school acoustic arrangements make you feel like a guest at a vintage nightclub. Love for Sale opens with its jazz hands waving – a curtain-swooshing rattle of drums and blare of brass – before Gaga takes the mic and leads us into “It’s De-Lovely!”.
Though the work of the wealthy Yale graduate (who drew as much on Gilbert and Sullivan as the work of his Broadway contemporaries) is sometimes criticised for a lack of emotional depth, Bennett and Gaga dance through his witty wordplay and bring nuanced humanity to the deft melodies he dashed off in his suite at the Waldorf. The sophisticated songs written by Cole Porter in the early 20th century are perfect fodder for the duo. It’s a pleasure to hear him and Gaga – born 60 years apart – step out for such an enjoyable musical conversation. Unlike the rock stars who turn to the standards as part of a lazy retirement plan, Bennett has always wanted to continue learning from them. Bennett brings the husky suede of his soft shoes to the party: always considered, dexterous and audibly decent. Although her pop career was built on staccato syllables (mah-mah-mah-mah Poh-kah face!), she can slide confidently up and down a jazz scale like a woman with a trombone for a throat. She brings sequins and drama and brassy big notes. Bennett’s got these songs under his skin, and pop’s Mother Monster does a brilliant job of helping him deliver them as a final gift to the world.įans of the pair’s first duets album, Cheek to Cheek (2011), will already know that Gaga and Bennett have a chemistry that crackles against the odds. To hear the subtle, supple way he finds his way through the 12 Cole Porter standards that appear on Love For Sale (his second duets album with Lady Gaga), you’d never guess that he was diagnosed with dementia five years ago and can no longer maintain anything like a normal conversation. Now he’s 95, Bennett is so in tune with the Great American Songbook that I wouldn't be surprised if Berlin rhymes and Gershwin lines showed up on his X-rays. Tony Bennett once said that “singing intimately is almost like thinking into a microphone, so it helps to have the song buried inside you”. And let’s give Lady Gaga a chance to shine on things to come.Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett defy the odds on ‘Love for Sale' (Kelsey Bennett) Let’s keep all those precious Tony Bennett memories. And the Las Vegas style of “You’re The Top” doesn’t really gel. Tony sounds supreme and totally assured on this one. We get a sophisticated and sympathetic arrangement on “Night And Day”, and the swing on “Just One Of Those Things” is almost nostalgic. “Dream Dancing” for me is forever associated with Ella Fitzgerald, so what does she have to offer? Nothing much. She sounds uneven and not really determined on “I Get A Kick Out Of You”, but then again wonderful and late 50s-like on “Do I Love You”, reminding me of the often overlooked Teal Joy (not the vibrato or the color, but more the phrasing) or even Monica Lewis. Tony sounds great on the light bossa touch that comprises “I Concentrate On You”, but it seems like Lady Gaga is a foreign body here.
And it is refreshing that he is not duetting with Lady Gaga on this particular piece, as he isn’t on a couple of more tracks.
“So In Love” is one of his best performances here, augmented by a great string arrangement. But what can you expect? I think it is amazing that he still sounds this good. Tony still has this elegant vibrato, and the grasp is still there, but he clearly isn’t as strong as back then. She sounds like a veritable 50s torch singer on the album opener “It’s De-Lovely” (her phrasing of the word “curse” is something), but then very disparate on “Love For Sale”. I am impressed with Lady Gaga’s performance.
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