Showing posts with label Lady Gaga. Show all posts
Monday, 6 October 2014
Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett set for new year's duet
(AP) — Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett are set to take the stage at The Cosmopolitan casino on New Year's Eve for their first show together in the U.S. since they released a joint album late last month.
The Las Vegas Strip resort announced Monday that the 28-year-old pop superstar and the 88-year-old jazz crooner will ring in the new year with jazz standards from their album "Cheek to Cheek."
"I can't wait to kick off 2015 'cheek to cheek' with the legendary Mr. Tony Bennett," Lady Gaga said in a statement. "New Year's celebrations are about cherishing family, friendship, and the future — three things this man has taught me much about."
Tickets for the show go on sale Friday.
Las Vegas welcomes more than 300,000 visitors each New Year's Eve holiday, and casinos step up with top-tier music acts, world-renowned DJs and an elaborate fireworks show.
Bringing in Bennett and Lady Gaga is an effort to distinguish the resort during a highly competitive time in the market, according to The Cosmopolitan's chief marketing officer, Lisa Marchese.
"We wanted to one-up ourselves for what people can expect," she said. "It's such an unexpected mashup — you just want to see it."
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
Tony Bennett breaks own record as oldest artist atop Billboard chart
(Reuters) - At 88, veteran crooner Tony Bennett broke his own record as the oldest living artist to land a No. 1 record on the weekly U.S. Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday with his latest compilation of duets with Lady Gaga.
"Cheek to Cheek," which features New York singers Bennett and Gaga singing classics such as "Anything Goes" and "Let's Face The Music And Dance," sold 131,000 copies in its first week according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan.
Bennett previously set the record for becoming the oldest-living artist to land a No. 1 album in 2011 aged 85, with his compilation "Duets," which included a track with Gaga.
"Cheek to Cheek" is the second compilation of classic songs to top the Billboard 200 chart for the second consecutive week, after fellow New York songstress Barbra Streisand's "Partners" debuted at No. 1 last week.
"Partners" dropped to No. 3 this week, behind country singer Kenny Chesney's "Big Revival," which entered the chart at No. 2 with sales of 130,000.
Other new albums to break into the top ten of the Billboard 200 chart, which measures physical and digital album sales across all genres, include English indie rockers Alt-J at No. 4 with "This Is All Yours" and a cappella group Pentatonix at No. 5 with "PTX, Vol. III."
Blues rocker Joe Bonamassa clocked in at No. 8 with "Different Shades of Blues" and R&B singer Jennifer Hudson rounded out the top ten with her new album "JHUD."
For the week ending Sept. 28, total album sales clocked in at 4.4 million units, down 14 percent from the comparable week in 2013, while year-to-date total sales totaled 175.71 million, also down 14 percent from last year, Billboard said.
Tuesday, 23 September 2014
Lady Gaga sheds quirky image for jazz album with Tony Bennett
(Reuters) - Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, bridging a 60-year age gap to form one of music's unlikeliest pairs, launched a jazz album on Monday that lets the pop diva put aside her wacky image to sing sweet harmonies with the elder statesman of cool.
"Cheek to Cheek," on sale on Tuesday after a launch concert in the ornate Renaissance setting of the Grand-Place in Brussels, features jazz standards by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and others a distant world away from Lady Gaga's 21st century.
"When I began writing music for the music industry, I became known as the quirky girl from downtown New York," she told a news conference at the 15th-century city hall.
"So I tailored my music to be that way, to get noticed, to be able to travel more and play more shows," said the 28-year-old artist known to many as much for startling costumes - like a robe made of meat - as for her innovative music and stage shows.
But swathed in blue velvet with a 2-metre (6-foot) train, Lady Gaga this week was more 1950s Hollywood star than queen of MTV in 2014 - although still easily young enough to be Bennett's grand-daughter.
"I feel liberated," she said, holding the hand of her fellow Italian-American New Yorker and musing on the challenges of old-style jazz. "It's been over eight years and I've not been singing out. But Tony will not accept any less than all of me."
The two first met in 2011 at a charity concert in New York and a short time afterwards, recorded a version of "The Lady is a Tramp" for Bennett's album Duets II.
"I was overjoyed that he had heard that I'd been singing jazz for so long, perhaps I was even afraid that I had lost that part of me," Lady Gaga said.
Bennett, who shot to fame with "Because of You" in 1951, said he enjoyed the simplicity of a jazz setting.
"I started the very same way as she did, with thousands of people cheering," he said.
"Later on I said I want to keep it in a simple way. Instead of the big stadiums, I'd like to play in fine acoustical homes."
For the concert to launch the album, the two chose a grand but intimate outdoor location, setting up stage on the Grand-Place, a site of pomp and pageantry down the centuries.
Once again, Lady Gaga kept it simple, sticking to a glittery gold cocktail dress and refraining from any of the costume changes that her live performances are known for.
Another change was the composition of the approximately 5,000-strong audience on the square, combining Lady Gaga's young fan base with many middle-aged spectators.
For about 30 minutes, the two performed some of the highlights of the album, from the upbeat duet "It Don't Mean a Thing" to Lady Gaga's solemn solo performance "Lush Life."
The crowd in Brussels responded enthusiastically to the brief show and Lady Gaga appeared touched by the reaction as she and Bennett bowed out.
Before the concert, Bennett had already predicted that Lady Gaga would strike a chord with fans as a jazz singer.
"I know that when Lady Gaga comes out you will hear a reaction that's never been heard in this great city," Bennett said. "People love her, and she loves them back."
Monday, 22 September 2014
BENNETT, GAGA HAVE SPECIAL CHEMISTRY ON NEW CD
Chemistry
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Duke Ellington
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Entertainment
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Frank Sinatra
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Lady Gaga
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Louis Armstrong
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Music
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Pop music
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Tony Bennett
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US
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USA
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Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga, "Cheek to Cheek" (Interscope/Columbia)
Tony Bennett has never forgotten the boost he got when Frank Sinatra declared him "the best singer in the whole business." Now it's Bennett's turn to grant his imprimatur to another Italian-American singer from New York: Stefani Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga.
Bennett and Gaga first teamed up on his Grammy-winning 2011 "Duets II" CD to perform the standard "The Lady Is a Tramp," with Gaga displaying impressive vocal chops. It turns out that this seemingly odd couple — separated in age by 60 years — both share a passion for the Great American Songbook and jazz singing, which Gaga says she first took up as a teenager.
That led them to record "Cheek to Cheek" — only the second full album that Bennett has done with another singer in his nearly 70-year recording career. The first was the sublime 2002 album, "A Wonderful World," with k.d. lang, on which the two voices blended smoothly on a subdued collection of ballads associated with Louis Armstrong.
There's a completely different chemistry on "Cheek to Cheek," starting with the opening track, Cole Porter's "Anything Goes," with the duo trading lines in a bright, brassy big-band swing arrangement. A sassy Gaga enthusiastically belts out her lines, while Bennett is as always elegant and precise in his phrasing.
Irving Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek" and Duke Ellington's "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" are both briskly paced with Gaga's high register vocals spinning around Bennett's middle-range lines with the two engaging in some crisp harmonizing and occasional scatting. On the Nat King Cole hit "Nature Boy," Gaga shows a different side, breathily caressing the lyrics and softly blending her lines with Bennett's, backed by a lush orchestral arrangement and the late Paul Horn's airy flute solo.
This is a liberating album for Gaga who shows that she doesn't need the outlandish meat dresses, voice-altering electric effects and elaborate stage shows to make an impact because her voice stands out on its own. Had she been born in an earlier era, Gaga would have been right at home in an MGM musical. On her solo features, Gaga sings softly and with restraint on Porter's ballad "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye," and shows her vulnerability in an emotional rendition of Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life," clearly identifying with the song's theme of loss and heartache.
The only surprise with Bennett is how vibrant he sounds at 88 with a voice that though raspier than in his early years has matured gracefully like fine wine, taking on more emotional depth, as reflected in his solo numbers, "Don't Wait Too Long" and Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady."
Bennett brings out another side of Gaga's artistry by recording this album in his customary manner — with the main performers interacting in the studio. The arrangements feature his touring jazz combo with pianist Mike Renzi plus such top-notch guest soloists as tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Brian Newman.
At times, Gaga's jazz phrasing can sound forced, as on Jerome Kern's "I Won't Dance," and she sometimes belts out the lyrics like a pop star. Gaga, who says she intends to record more jazz albums, has great potential as a jazz singer and could learn much from Bennett who early in his career often sang in a stiff operatic voice before becoming more relaxed, nuanced and jazzier once he started recording albums of the timeless standards.
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