Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

This expansive Box Set contains all 63 of Tony Bennett’s albums in separate facsimile LP jackets, three DVDs, six volumes of Bennett’s non-album singles, a previously unreleased CD of his Las Vegas debut from 1964, and two discs of rarities, including Bennett’s first recording, an Army V-Disc of “St. James Infirmary Blues,” making it an absolute treasure trove for Bennett fans and collectors.

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

Bennett, whose recorded legacy has been gathered in a 76-disc boxed set titled The Compete Collection, has been doing that for over 60 years: saving our souls with the greatest songs ever written. The Complete box is an absolute necessity, first because it contains several previously unreleased albums, like On the Glory Road and From This Moment On, a live concert taped in Las Vegas that collectors have been salivating over since 1964. But more important, the new box is essential because up to now, Bennett has been the one singer of his stature to have such a large part of his canon unavailable in the digital era. Over the last 25 years, it has been possible to obtain virtually everything ever done by such Bennett peers as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, and Sarah Vaughan, yet somehow many absolutely classic Tony Bennett albums have never seen the light of day on CD: Hometown My Town, Love Story, Get Happy with the London Philharmonic, Summer of '42, Yesterday I Heard the Rain, Tony Makes It Happen, and many others. Bennett's career has been a long one: the box covers a span of 65 years, starting with that 1946 aircheck (originating from occupied Germany), when PFC Bennett was probably not yet 20, and goes up to Duets II, the last tracks of which (including duets with Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga) were recorded as he was gearing up for his 85th birthday. (In fact, producer Didier Deutsch and engineer Dae Bennett, the singer's son, were already working on this box when Tony had yet to record some of the tracks for Duets II.) The overall effect of the package, 73 CDs and three DVDs, is overwhelming. (The videos include his Grammy-winning MTV Unplugged special from 1994; An American Classic, a documentary produced by Clint Eastwood around the time of Mr. Bennett's 80th; and a very rare filmed concert from 1970 with the London Philharmonic.)

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

"In Person!", part of a series of 1958 collaborations between Tony Bennett and Count Basie, has an unusually convoluted history. Bennett and Basie appeared together at the Latin Casino in Philadelphia in late November of 1958 in a performance that was recorded for commercial release but when that tape proved unusable for technical reasons, producer Mitch Miller decided to bring the singer and the band back together in the studio in a pair of sessions a month later to re-create the concert program. For the original LP release, the producers also dubbed on applause, seeking to fake the ambience of an actual live performance, hence the title of the album. But the fake was obvious to all concerned, and when the album was re-released in 1994 as part of Sony Music's Mastersound series of audiophile CDs, the makers went back to the original session tapes and left off the applause. The result is a state-of-the-art reissue of what was also, as near as one can tell, the first of Bennett's albums to get a stereo release. As this was also the first reissue the album had apparently ever received, the tapes were in impeccable condition the result is an extraordinary listening experience, even 40-plus years later. The original album, even with the tampering at the time, had a healthy swing to it, courtesy of the Basie band, and with the richness of tone and the close sound available to the makers of the CD, the album works even better. Bennett's sensitively nuanced intonation in the opening of "Pennies from Heaven" is now up close and personal, while the band's beat in the second half of the song is now crisper and more solid than ever. Ralph Sharon, Bennett's usual accompanist, is handling the piano chores (while Basie himself is credited as leader), and his finely articulated playing is also brought out crisply on "Lost in the Stars" and other tracks. It's all worth hearing, and more often than just once it was records like this, as reconstituted properly for CD, that constituted the absolute golden end of the pop legacy of the late '50s.

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

One of the best albums that Tony Bennett cut in the '50s, Hometown, My Hometown is a song suite dedicated to the vocalist's beloved New York City. The album was in part influenced by Gordon Jenkins' highly successful Manhattan Tower album which was a big seller throughout the '50s. But unlike it and so many other similar theme albums (such as Sinatra's Come Fly with Me or Mel Tormé's Songs of New York), Bennett doesn't sing songs that are specifically about geographical places in Manhattan or even about the city in general. Instead, the tunes are ones that Bennett feels best evoke the city and the unique solitude that one experiences on Manhattan's crowded streets. Noted jazz arranger Ralph Burns is the perfect choice to flesh out and connect the numbers. He also gamely pens extended musical passages that evoke Manhattan even when the lyrics do not. Judged only on his sweeping, highly jazz-inflected arrangements here it's not surprising that Burns would go on to win both Tonys and Oscars for his work in theater and film. Thematically, the album tells a story of a lonely urbanite who finds fleeting happiness with a girl and then loses her. It's as simple as that. But while the lyrics to the final track the standard "The Party's Over" may be construed as negative, Bennett puts a positive spin on the song, giving the sense that in a town like Manhattan the next chapter of the story is just around the corner. One of the heavily jazz accented albums that Bennett was able to cut between all of his orchestral ballad sessions, Hometown, My Hometown is shorter than most albums of the '50s. Perhaps this is why this excellent work has been out of print for so long.

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

Working with arranger/conductor Frank DeVol, Tony Bennett here recorded a string-filled ballad session featuring standards like "September Song" and "Autumn Leaves." In so doing, he demonstrated how far he had come in controlling his instrument in his 10 years of recording. There was none of the oratorical style of his early hits. The restraint was especially noticeable on a song like "Till," which could have allowed for some of the old bel canto belting. Instead, Bennett's interpretations now had a detail and a nuance that marked him as a master interpreter.

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

Alone Together is an album by American singer Tony Bennett. It was originally recorded in 1960 and released on Columbia as CL 1471. It almost exclusively features string arrangements of standards, with a choir, harp accompaniment and sparse percussion in places. It is among the most obscure Bennett recordings. So far, it has been released on CD only in Japan by CBS/Sony until Sony Music's release in 2013.

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

As a male vocalist, Tony Bennett's open, emotional style is particularly suited to the blues-inflected songs of Harold Arlen, composer of "Over The Rainbow" and other songs more associated with Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Ethel Waters and other strong female singers. This 1960 session follows Bennett's masterly rendition of three Arlen songs on the previous year's TONY SINGS FOR TWO, an excellent solo recital accompanied only by Ralph Sharon's piano. On HAROLD ARLEN, arranger Glenn Osser provides ethereal string settings which lend Bennett's interpretations a somewhat spiritual cast on famous songs like "Rainbow" and "Come Rain Or Come Shine" as well as others not so well-known like the touching "House Of Flowers" with lyrics by Truman Capote.

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close

×

Tony Bennett - The Complete Collection [73CD Box Set] (2011) {Discs 14-18}

Close