CD 1
1. Young And Foolish
2. The Touch Of Your Lips
3. Some Other Time
4. When In Rome
5. We'll Be Together Again
6. My Foolish Heart
7. Waltz For Debby
8. But Beautiful
9. Days of Wine and Roses
10. The Bad And The Beautiful
11. Lucky To Be Me
12. Make Someone Happy
13. You're Nearer
14. A Child Is Born
15. The Two Lonely People
16. You Don't Know What Love Is - Tony Bennett
17. Maybe September
18. Lonely Girl
19. You Must Believe In Spring
20. Who Can I Turn To?
21. Dream Dancing
CD 2
1. Young And Foolish
2. The Touch Of Your Lips
3. Some Other Time
4. When In Rome
5. Waltz For Debby
6. The Bad and The Beautiful (alternate take 1)
7. The Bad and the Beautiful (alternate take 2)
8. Make Someone Happy (alternate take 5)
9. You're Nearer (alternate take 9)
10. A Child Is Born (alternate take 2)
11. A Child Is Born (alternate take 7)
12. The Two Lonely People (alternate take 5)
13. You Don't Know What Love Is (alternate take 16)
14. You Don't Know What Love Is (alternate take 18)
15. Maybe September (alternate take 5)
16. Maybe September (alternate take 8)
17. Lonely Girl (alternate take 1)
18. You Must Believe in Spring (alternate take 1)
19. You Must Believe in Spring (alternate take 4)
20. Who Can I Turn To (alternate take 6)
Tony Bennett (vocals)
Bill Evans (piano)
rec. 1975 and 1976, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, CA.
The meeting of Bill Evans and Tony Bennett – the two had something
of a mutual appreciation society – was a mid 1970s highpoint. At the
time aficionados of the pianist in particular must have expressed
doubts, but seen in the cool, clear light of hindsight the rendezvous
was not the jarring mismatch it might have seemed. In fact there was
a degree of self-interest at work, beyond the musical meeting of minds,
given the commercial clout Bennett carried and the cachet Evans commanded
in the jazz fraternity.
Fantasy’s slimline double CD gives us the works. It contains the
first 1975 album called The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album and
adds the meeting from the following year, entitled with punctilious
obviousness Together Again. There is also a swathe of alternative
takes – Fantasy persists in the fantasy that these are called ‘alternate’
takes – and two bonus tracks from the latter album; Who Can I Turn
To? and Dream Dancing.
Given that there are often two alternative takes from the Together
Again sessions this is a serious investment for admirers of one
or both men. Duplication is rife and the differences between takes
small though sometimes worthy of note. It’s a completist release,
obviously.
The results of the meeting are enshrined in their exploration of
the sacred heartland of America’s popular songbook. Evans’s harmonic
sophistication is never pushed beyond the vulnerable limits of a singer-and-pianist
(hardly accompanist) collaboration. There is no real sense of a disjointed
meeting. Sometimes there is an element of braggadocio in the singing
that doesn’t sit too well. The Touch Of Your Lips for example
hasn’t worn well, and sounds forced. But, more often than not, there
is stylistic and - more to the point - expressive unity between the
two in their espousing of the Great American Songbook. Whether they
stretch out, as in My Foolish Heart – rather beautifully done
– or pursue a more succinct approach, as they do in The Days of
Wine and Roses, their responses are fused.
The second album opened with an Evans solo on The Bad And The
Beautiful. Possibly, and I’d be no more confident than that, the
most impressive song here is Make Someone Happy, a splendid
example of Evans’s articulate piano and Bennett’s apt singing in a
performance of timeless sophistication. To those for whom Evans’s
romanticism is all, I would cite his glorious filigree in Lonely
Girl.
There are extensive notes by Will Friedwald whose fusion of biographical
precision and nerdish hyperbole always makes for entertaining reading
– if you want to wade through seventeen pages of it, that is.
Jonathan Woolf
See also an additional review by Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Fantasy 0888072312814
