{"id":27502,"date":"2023-07-22T12:21:43","date_gmt":"2023-07-22T19:21:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=27502"},"modified":"2023-07-22T12:21:44","modified_gmt":"2023-07-22T19:21:44","slug":"tony-bennett-masterful-stylist-of-american-musical-standards-dies-at-96","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/07\/22\/tony-bennett-masterful-stylist-of-american-musical-standards-dies-at-96\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Bennett, masterful stylist of American musical standards, dies at 96"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CHARLES J. GANS, <\/em>Associated Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 21, 2023Updated: July 21, 2023 8:05\u00a0a.m. (SFGate.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"FILE
FILE — Tony Bennett performs at the Statue of Liberty Museum opening celebration at Battery Park on Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in New York.Evan Agostini\/Evan Agostini\/Invision\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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    NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Tony Bennett, the eminent and timeless stylist whose devotion to classic American songs and knack for creating new standards such as “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” graced a decades long career that brought him admirers from Frank Sinatra to Lady Gaga, died Friday. He was 96, just two weeks short of his birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Publicist Sylvia Weiner confirmed Bennett’s death to The Associated Press, saying he died in his hometown of New York. There was no specific cause, but Bennett had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The last of the great saloon singers of the mid-20th century, Bennett often said his lifelong ambition was to create “a hit catalog rather than hit records.” He released more than 70 albums, bringing him 19 competitive Grammys \u2014 all but two after he reached his 60s \u2014 and enjoyed deep and lasting affection from fans and fellow artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Bennett didn\u2019t tell his own story when performing; he let the music speak instead \u2014 the Gershwins and Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern. Unlike his friend and mentor Sinatra, he would interpret a song rather than embody it. If his singing and public life lacked the high drama of Sinatra\u2019s, Bennett appealed with an easy, courtly manner and an uncommonly rich and durable voice \u2014 \u201cA tenor who sings like a baritone,\u201d he called himself \u2014 that made him a master of caressing a ballad or brightening an up-tempo number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cI enjoy entertaining the audience, making them forget their problems,\u201d he told The Associated Press in 2006. \u201cI think people … are touched if they hear something that\u2019s sincere and honest and maybe has a little sense of humor. … I just like to make people feel good when I perform.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Bennett was praised often by his peers, but never more meaningfully than by what Sinatra said in a 1965 Life magazine interview: \u201cFor my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business. He excites me when I watch him. He moves me. He\u2019s the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind, and probably a little more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    He not only survived the rise of rock music but endured so long and so well that he gained new fans and collaborators, some young enough to be his grandchildren. In 2014, at age 88, Bennett broke his own record as the oldest living performer with a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart for \u201cCheek to Cheek,\u201d his duets project with Lady Gaga. Three years earlier, he topped the charts with \u201cDuets II,\u201d featuring such contemporary stars as Gaga, Carrie Underwood and Amy Winehouse, in her last studio recording. His rapport with Winehouse was captured in the Oscar-nominated documentary \u201cAmy,\u201d which showed Bennett patiently encouraging the insecure young singer through a performance of \u201cBody and Soul.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    His final album, the 2021 release \u201cLove for Sale,\u201d featured duets with Lady Gaga on the title track, \u201cNight and Day\u201d and other Porter songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For Bennett, one of the few performers to move easily between pop and jazz, such collaborations were part of his crusade to expose new audiences to what he called the Great American Songbook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cNo country has given the world such great music,\u201d Bennett said in a 2015 interview with Downbeat Magazine. \u201cCole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern. Those songs will never die.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Ironically, his most famous contribution came through two unknowns, George Cory and Douglass Cross, who in the early \u201960s provided Bennett with his signature song at a time his career was in a lull. They gave Bennett\u2019s musical director, pianist Ralph Sharon, some sheet music that he stuck in a dresser drawer and forgot about until he was packing for a tour that included a stop in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cRalph saw some sheet music in his shirt drawer … and on top of the pile was a song called \u2018I Left My Heart In San Francisco.\u2019 Ralph thought it would be good material for San Francisco,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cWe were rehearsing and the bartender in the club in Little Rock, Arkansas, said, \u2018If you record that song, I\u2019m going to be the first to buy it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Released in 1962 as the B-side of the single \u201cOnce Upon a Time,\u201d the reflective ballad became a grassroots phenomenon staying on the charts for more than two years and earning Bennett his first two Grammys, including record of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    By his early 40s, he was seemingly out of fashion. But after turning 60, an age when even the most popular artists often settle for just pleasing their older fans, Bennett and his son and manager, Danny, found creative ways to market the singer to the MTV Generation. He made guest appearances on \u201cLate Night with David Letterman\u201d and became a celebrity guest artist on \u201cThe Simpsons.\u201d He wore a black T-shirt and sunglasses as a presenter with the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the 1993 MTV Music Video Awards, and his own video of \u201cSteppin\u2019 Out With My Baby\u201d from his Grammy-winning Fred Astaire tribute album ended up on MTV\u2019s hip \u201cBuzz Bin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    That led to an offer in 1994 to do an episode of \u201cMTV Unplugged\u201d with special guests Elvis Costello and k.d. lang. The evening\u2019s performance resulted in the album, \u201cTony Bennett: MTV Unplugged,\u201d which won two Grammys, including album of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Bennett would win Grammys for his tributes to female vocalists (\u201cHere\u2019s to the Ladies\u201d), Billie Holiday (\u201cTony Bennett on Holiday\u201d), and Duke Ellington (\u201cBennett Sings Ellington \u2014 Hot & Cool\u201d). He also won Grammys for his collaborations with other singers: \u201cPlayin\u2019 With My Friends \u2014 Bennett Sings the Blues,\u201d and his Louis Armstrong tribute, \u201cA Wonderful World\u201d with lang, the first full album he had ever recorded with another singer. He celebrated his 80th birthday with \u201cDuets: An American Classic,\u201d featuring Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cThey\u2019re all giants in the industry, and all of a sudden they\u2019re saying to me \u2018You\u2019re the master,\u2019\u201d Bennett told the AP in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Long associated with San Francisco, Bennett would note that his true home was Astoria, the working-class community in the New York City borough of Queens, where he grew up during the Great Depression. The singer chose his old neighborhood as the site for the \u201cFame\u201d-style public high school, the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, that he and his third wife, Susan Crow Benedetto, a former teacher, helped found in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The school is not far from the birthplace of the man who was once Anthony Dominick Benedetto. His father was an Italian immigrant who inspired his love of singing, but he died when Anthony was 10. Bennett credited his mother, Anna, with teaching him a valuable lesson as he watched her working at home, supporting her three children as a seamstress doing piecework after his father died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cWe were very impoverished,\u201d Bennett said in a 2016 AP interview. \u201cI saw her working and every once in a while she\u2019d take a dress and throw it over her shoulder and she\u2019d say, \u2018Don\u2019t have me work on a bad dress. I\u2019ll only work on good dresses.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    He studied commercial art in high school, but had to drop out to help support his family. The teenager got a job as a copy boy for the AP, performed as a singing waiter and competed in amateur shows. A combat infantryman during World War II, he served as a librarian for the Armed Forces Network after the war and sang with an army big band in occupied Germany. His earliest recording is a 1946 air check from Armed Forces Radio of the blues \u201cSt. James Infirmary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Bennett took advantage of the GI Bill to attend the American Theater Wing, which later became The Actors Studio. His acting lessons helped him develop his phrasing and learn how to tell a story. He learned the more intimate Bel Canto vocal technique which helped him sustain and extend the expressive range of his voice. And he took to heart the advice of his vocal coach, Miriam Spier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cShe said please don\u2019t imitate other singers because you\u2019ll just be one of the chorus whoever you imitate whether it\u2019s Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra and won\u2019t develop an original sound,\u201d Bennett recalled in the 2006 AP interview. \u201cShe said imitate musicians that you like, find out how they phrase. I was particularly influenced by the jazz musicians like (pianist) Art Tatum and (saxophonists) Lester Young and Stan Getz.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In 1947, Bennett made his first recording, the Gershwins\u2019 standard \u201cFascinatin\u2019 Rhythm\u201d for a small label under the stage name Joe Bari. The following year he gained notice when he finished behind Rosemary Clooney on the radio show \u201cArthur Godfrey\u2019s Talent Scouts.\u201d Bennett\u2019s big break came in 1949 when singer Pearl Bailey invited him to join her revue at a Greenwich Village club. Bob Hope dropped by one night and was so impressed that he offered the young singer a spot opening his shows at the famed Paramount Theater, where teens had swooned for Sinatra. But the comedian didn\u2019t care for his stage name and thought his real name was too long for the marquee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cHe thought for a moment, then he said, \u2018We\u2019ll call you Tony Bennett,\u2019\u201d the singer wrote in his autobiography, \u201cThe Good Life,\u201d published in 1998.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In 1950, Mitch Miller, the head of Columbia Records\u2019 pop singles division, signed Bennett and released the single, \u201cThe Boulevard of Broken Dreams,\u201d a semi-hit. Bennett was on the verge of being dropped from the label in 1951 when he had his first No. 1 on the pop charts with \u201cBecause of You.\u201d More hits followed, including \u201cRags to Riches,\u201d \u201cBlue Velvet,\u201d and Hank Williams\u2019 \u201cCold, Cold Heart,\u201d the first country song to become an international pop hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Bennett found himself frequently clashing with Miller, who pushed him to sing Sinatra-style ballads and gimmicky novelty songs. But Bennett took advantage of the young LP album format, starting in 1955 with \u201cCloud 7,\u201d featuring a small jazz combo led by guitarist Chuck Wayne. Bennett reached out to the jazz audience with such innovative albums as the 1957 \u201cThe Beat of My Heart,\u201d an album of standards that paired him with such jazz percussion masters as Chico Hamilton, and Art Blakey. He also became the first white male singer to record with the Count Basie Orchestra, releasing two albums in 1958. Sinatra would later do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Bennett\u2019s friendship with Black musicians and his disgust at the racial prejudice he encountered in the Army led him to become an active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. He answered Harry Belafonte\u2019s call to join Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march and perform for the protesters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Bennett\u2019s early career peaked in the 1960s as he topped the charts with \u201cSan Francisco\u201d and became the first male pop solo performer to headline at Carnegie Hall, releasing a live album of the 1962 concert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In 1966, he released \u201cThe Movie Song Album,\u201d a personal favorite which featured Johnny Mandel\u2019s Oscar-winning song \u201cThe Shadow of Your Smile\u201d and \u201cMaybe September,\u201d the theme from the epic flop \u201cThe Oscar,\u201d noteworthy because it marked Bennett\u2019s first and only big-screen acting role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    But as rock continued to overtake traditional pop, he clashed with Columbia label head Clive Davis, who insisted that the singer do the 1970 album \u201cTony Sings the Great Hits of Today,\u201d with such songs as \u201cMacArthur Park\u201d and \u201cLittle Green Apples.\u201d Bennett left Columbia in 1972, and went on to form his own record label, Improv, which in 1975-76 produced two duet albums with the impressionistic pianist Bill Evans now considered jazz classics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Despite artistic successes, Improv proved a financial disaster for Bennett, who also faced difficulties in his personal life. His marriage to artist Patricia Beech collapsed in 1971. He wed actress Sandra Grant the same year, but that marriage ended in 1984. With no recording deals, his debts brought him close to bankruptcy and the IRS was trying to seize his house in Los Angeles. After a near-fatal drug overdose in 1979, he turned to his son, Danny, who eventually signed on as his manager. Bennett kicked his drug habit and got his finances in order, moved back to New York and resumed doing more than 200 shows a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    He is survived by his wife Susan, daughters Johanna and Antonia, sons Danny and Dae and nine grandchildren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Bennett was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2005 and a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2006. He also won two Emmy Awards \u2014 for \u201cTony Bennett Live By Request: A Valentine Special\u201d (1996) and \u201cTony Bennett: An American Classic\u201d (2007).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Besides singing, Bennett pursued his lifelong passion for painting by taking art lessons and bringing his sketchbook on the road. His paintings, signed with his family name Benedetto \u2014 including portraits of his musician friends and Central Park landscapes \u2014 were displayed in public and private collections, including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cI love to paint as much as I love to sing,\u201d Bennett told the AP in 2006. \u201cIt worked out to be such a blessing in my life because if I started getting burnt-out singing … I would go to my painting and that\u2019s a big lift. … So I stay in this creative zone all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    ____<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Gans, the principal writer of this obituary, is a former Associated Press journalist. AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Written By CHARLES J. GANS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    CHARLES J. GANS, Associated Press July 21, 2023Updated: July 21, 2023 8:05\u00a0a.m. (SFGate.com) NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Tony Bennett, the eminent and timeless stylist whose devotion to classic American songs and knack for creating new standards such as “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” graced a decades long career that… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[836],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27503,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27502\/revisions\/27503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}