Having completed his relatively brief sojourn with
MGM
/
Verve
with 1973's
Listen Easy
,
Tony Bennett
was in the midst of forming his own label,
Improv Records
, when he made a deal with
jazz
pianist
Bill Evans
to cut two LPs, this one for
Evans
' label,
Fantasy Records
, with another to follow on
Improv
. The singer and his collaborator ("accompanist" does not adequately describe
' contribution, and in any case he received co-billing) got together in a recording studio over four days in June 1975 with no one other than the producer,
Helen Keane
and an engineer present, and quickly recorded one of the best albums of either's career. For
Bennett
, it was a dream project; for years (decades, actually), he had been balancing the demands of commerciality with his own inclinations toward
and affection for the songs of Broadway masters and of the Great American Songbook. Left to himself with a
partner, he naturally gravitated toward both interests. There were songs here that he had already recorded, but never in so unadorned and yet fully realized a fashion.
was an excellent accompanist, using his steady left hand to keep his singer centered, but ready, whenever the vocals were finished, to go off into his characteristically lyrical playing.
could seem a bit earthbound when he came back in (he still wasn't really a
singer), but his obvious enthusiasm for the project, coupled with his mastery of phrasing in songs he understood perfectly made him an equal in the partnership. As far as the major-label record business was concerned, the 46-year-old singer might have been over the hill and indulging himself, but in fact he was in his prime and finally able to pursue his ambitions unfettered, and that would prove itself a major boost to his career over time. For the moment, he'd made an excellent
jazz-pop
hybrid in which both musicians were shown off to advantage. [The five alternate takes included as bonus tracks on the 2006 reissue of the album are, not surprisingly, more interesting for
' different improvisations than for anything else. But they also demonstrate that he and
tried different approaches to the tunes. The album's lead-off track,
"Young and Foolish,"
begins with both
and
on the refrain, but the alternate take starts with
alone, followed by
singing the song's introductory verse instead; the version runs a minute longer. The alternate take of
"The Touch of Your Lips,"
on the other hand, is at a faster tempo and a minute shorter. None of the alternate takes actually improves on the originally released ones, but they show how well considered the album was.] ~ William Ruhlmann