{"id":5122,"date":"2013-09-28T17:25:14","date_gmt":"2013-09-29T00:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=5122"},"modified":"2013-09-29T15:36:12","modified_gmt":"2013-09-29T22:36:12","slug":"recent-listening-bennettbrubeck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2013\/09\/recent-listening-bennettbrubeck\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Listening: Bennett\/Brubeck"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tony Bennett\/Dave Brubeck<\/strong>,The White House Sessions Live 1962<\/em><\/a> (Columbia\/RPM\/Legacy)<\/p>\n

Riding on the success of hit records, in August of \u00e2\u20ac\u212262 Brubeck and Bennett had a good night in the shadow of the Washington Monument. They played in the Sylvan Theater for college students who had interned in the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s capitol that summer. That morning at the White House, President John F. Kennedy thanked the youngsters. The concert constituted an additional bonus for their work. In the last flowering of an era when recordings of the quality of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take Five\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I Left My Heart in San Francisco\u00e2\u20ac\u009d could be best sellers, the audience was attuned to the Brubeck Quartet and to Bennett and his trio. At the end, they got an extra treat, an unplanned and successful collaboration<\/p>\n

\"BennettBrubeck\"<\/a>In the previously unissued recording, Brubeck\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s full-bodied keyboard style and expansive harmonic chops are up, but he also solos with single-note lines in a personal style that helped to set him apart from bebop pianists. He, Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello perform four pieces that find the quartet at the top of their game in a period when the band had become one of the music\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great successes. Desmond is notably expansive in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Nomad,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thank You\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Djiekuje\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). In \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Castilian Blues\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Morello\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s solo is restrained, almost lyrical, before he builds it to a crescendo. <\/p>\n

With his regular accompanists, the Ralph Sharon Trio, Bennett features \u00e2\u20ac\u0153San Francisco\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and other songs that were doing well for him, among them \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Just in Time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Make Someone Happy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the inevitable \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Rags to Riches.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The highlight of his own set, however, is Julie Styne and Stephen Sondheim\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Small World.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bennett delivers it with a poetic sensitivity that, when he chooses to use it, puts him in a class with Frank Sinatra as a ballad singer. <\/p>\n

Then, Bennett sits in with Brubeck, Wright and Morello. They all rise to the spontaneous and unrehearsed challenge. In four songs, Bennett sings with a collaborative jazz spirit that he had only occasionally found on record in the past and that would not reach full flower until years later in his albums with Bill Evans. On this night, he and Brubeck surprise each other, literally in the case of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lullaby of Broadway,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when Bennett suddenly says \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dave Brubeck\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by way of informing the pianist that he should solo. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chicago,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d gets a shuffle beat. Bennett is almost operatic in the final chorus of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That Old Black Magic,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but that doesn’t keep him from swinging. Following a stately first chorus by Bennett on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There Will Never Be Another You,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the time doubles and Brubeck plays a fleet solo that ranks with his best on record. Hidden in a vault for nearly fifty years, this music is as fresh as the night it was made. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tony Bennett\/Dave Brubeck,The White House Sessions Live 1962 (Columbia\/RPM\/Legacy) Riding on the success of hit records, in August of \u00e2\u20ac\u212262 Brubeck and Bennett had a good night in the shadow of the Washington Monument. They played in the Sylvan Theater for college students who had interned in the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s capitol that summer. That morning at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}