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Bennett turned to jazz, at the suggestion of his pianist Ralph Sharon, beginning in 1957 with the album Beat of My Heart--a critically acclaimed collaboration with Herbie Mann, Nat Adderley, Art Blakey, and other prominent jazz instrumentalists. He then became the first male vocalist to front the Count Basie Orchestra, creating two now-classic albums, Basie Swings, Bennett Sings (1958) and In Person! Tony Bennett and the Count Basie Orchestra (1959). A landmark 1962 jazz concert at Carnegie Hall boasted 44 songs that became his, including "I've Got The World on a String" and "The Best Is Yet To Come." Also in 1962, Bennett released "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," which spent a year on the charts, won multiple Grammys and became an American classic. The turbulent 1960s saw Bennett exploring, everything from a movie role in "The Oscar" to a musical dip into psychedelia, Tony Bennett Sings the Songs of Today! Still, it was the songs not just of today, but of always that reclaimed his attention, and his single "What Is This Thing Called Love?" was just one of the decidedly un-psychedelic hits Bennett had from a pair of albums in collaboration with Bill Evans. It was Tony's son Danny who thought to showcase his dad for younger audiences, booking guest spots on THE DAVID LETTERMAN SHOW, "The Simpsons" and on MTV. Dressed in a tux and singing as he had for another generation in Carnegie Hall, Tony was very much at home. His music video of "Steppin' Out With My Baby" remains one of the unlikeliest and most likable of all MTV hits. His 1994 Unplugged won the top Grammy for Album of the Year. His latest string of Grammy winners was just getting going, with affectionate, jazzy tributes to Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday, in addition to very special albums dedicated to Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra: Steppin' Out and Simply Frank. A champion of the civil rights movement, Bennett had spoken out against racial segregation while he served in the army in the 1940s and, in 1965, participated in the historic marches to Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. Later, he also would join the artistic boycott of apartheid South Africa. Bennett also has raised millions of dollars for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. |
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 He never abandoned his painting and still finds time to work with brushes when he is not singing. His original paintings each year are reproduced as greeting cards to raise funds for the American Cancer Foundation. Painting under his real name Benedetto, he has exhibited at prestigious galleries and has received commissions from the United Nations, where his art hangs. When his friend David Hockney famously drew Bennett, the singer returned the favor with a painted Homage to Hockney that hangs permanently in the Butler Institute of American Art. In 2001, Bennett and his partner Susan Crow paid tribute to yet another friend and founded the Frank Sinatra School for the Arts in Queens, a public high school dedicated to teaching the performing arts. "I need two lifetimes," Tony Bennett has said. "I'll never get it finished." Perhaps. But what he has given us so far is immensely good. PAGE: 1 | 2 |
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