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Life is Beautiful: The "Romantic" Tony Bennett Coming For Valentine's Day

January 17, 2012 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment

Well, Valentine’s Day is less than one month away, and chances are some of you might be looking for the perfect accompaniment for that moment when you turn the lights down low, pour your favorite vino and share amorous thoughts with your better half.  If so, Concord Music Group has one such offering for your hi-fi.  Isn’t It Romantic? is a new 15-track offering due on February 7, drawing on Tony Bennett’s recordings for the Improv and Fantasy labels, originally released between 1975 and 1977.

Bennett founded Improv Records in 1975 with the determination of an industry veteran ready to make a statement of creative freedom.  He had concluded a long tenure at Columbia Records and a two-album deal for MGM when Improv was born, and although the label only released some ten albums in its short lifetime, its music resonated with the full power of what we now call The Great American Songbook.  A glance at some of the songwriters represented on Isn’t It Romantic? proves this: Leonard Bernstein, Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter.

More than one-third of the tracks originated on The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album, the first collaboration between Bennett and the jazz pianist, known for his sensitive work as a pioneer of the modal jazz style.  Bennett and Evans made for incredibly sympathetic partners, and their work together is mood music of the highest order.  Three tracks come from their 1977 follow-up, Together Again, recorded for Improv.

Though nothing is present from the freewheeling Tony Bennett/The McPartlands and Friends Make Magnificent Music, each one of Bennett’s other Improv albums is represented.  From the original Sings 10 Rodgers and Hart Songs comes three cuts including “Isn’t It Romantic?,” written by the team for the 1932 motion picture Love Me Tonight.  Its “sequel” (from the same 1973 recording sessions with the Ruby Braff-George Barnes Quartet) Sings More Great Rodgers and Hart has yielded “My Romance,” from the 1935 musical Jumbo.  Finally, 1975’s Life is Beautiful has been culled for both its title track (gifted to Bennett by its songwriter, Fred Astaire!) and Herman Hupfeld’s “As Time Goes By,” introduced in the 1931 Broadway musical Everybody’s Welcome but immortalized on the silver screen in 1942’s Casablanca.

Hit the jump for more, including the full track listing and pre-order link!

This relatively brief period of Bennett’s still-thriving career has been anthologized numerous times, including on 2004’s The Complete Improv Recordings (Concord CCD4-2255), a cornerstone of any music library, and 2006’s Tony Bennett Sings for Lovers.  There's nothing new for completists, but if you’re looking for a succinct sampler of the period, each of the fifteen tracks here is beyond reproach.  Isn't It Romantic? arrives on February 7.  This is classic, classy singing at its finest.

Tony Bennett, Isn’t It Romantic? (Concord, 2012)

  1. Make Someone Happy
  2. Isn’t It Romantic?
  3. As Time Goes By
  4. My Foolish Heart
  5. I Could Write a Book
  6. Days of Wine and Roses
  7. Dream Dancing
  8. The Touch of Your Lips
  9. Lover
  10. But Beautiful
  11. Young and Foolish
  12. We’ll Be Together Again
  13. My Romance
  14. Lucky To Be Me
  15. Life Is Beautiful

Tracks 1, 7 & 14 from Tony Bennett and Bill Evans: Together Again, Improv LP 7117, 1977
Tracks 2, 5 & 9 from Tony Bennett Sings 10 Rodgers & Hart Songs, Improv LP 7113, 1976
Tracks 3 & 15 from Life is Beautiful, Improv LP 7112, 1975
Tracks 4, 6, 8, 10-12 from The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album, Fantasy F-9489, 1975
Track 13 from Tony Bennett Sings More Great Rodgers & Hart, Improv LP 7120, 1977

Categories: News Tags: Tony Bennett

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Joe Marchese

JOE MARCHESE (Editor) joined The Second Disc shortly after its launch in early 2010, and has since penned daily news and reviews about classic music of all genres. In 2015, Joe formed the Second Disc Records label. Celebrating the great songwriters, producers and artists who created the sound of American popular song, Second Disc Records, in conjunction with Real Gone Music, has released newly-curated collections produced by Joe from iconic artists such as Johnny Mathis, Bobby Darin, Laura Nyro, Melissa Manchester, Chet Atkins, and many others. He has contributed liner notes to reissues from a diverse array of artists, among them Nat "King" Cole, Paul Williams, Lesley Gore, Dusty Springfield, B.J. Thomas, The 5th Dimension, Burt Bacharach, The Mamas and the Papas, Carpenters, Perry Como, Rod McKuen, Doris Day, Jackie DeShannon, and Andy Williams, and has compiled releases for talents including Robert Goulet and Keith Allison of Paul Revere and the Raiders. Over the past two decades, Joe has also worked in a variety of capacities on and off Broadway as well as at some of the premier theatres in the U.S., including Lincoln Center Theater, George Street Playhouse, Paper Mill Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, and the York Theatre Company. He has felt privileged to work on productions alongside artists such as the late Jack Klugman, Eli Wallach, Arthur Laurents, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. In 2009, Joe began contributing theatre and music reviews to the print publication The Sondheim Review, and in 2012, he joined the staff of The Digital Bits as a regular contributor writing about film and television on DVD and Blu-ray. Joe currently resides in the suburbs of New York City.

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Comments

  1. Doug says

    January 17, 2012 at 7:27 pm

    Concord is sure getting their money's worth out of this catalog!

    Reply
  2. Kevin says

    January 18, 2012 at 12:20 pm

    The next Concord set will be the Tony Bennett Improv recordings in Alphabetical order. Then they plan to do them in the order that the songs were written, then they plan to do them in order of birthdate of the composer, then they plan to....

    Reply

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