Bennett shares spotlight

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Legendary crooner sings Duets in a truly special episode of Great Performances ( )

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Bennett and Lady Gaga: ‘She knows so much about performing, (and) she sings magnificently.’ ( )

The name of the long-running PBS series has always demanded a lot from its contributors: Great Performances.

This week, with the help of some rather high-profile singing partners, Tony Bennett delivers, and then some.

The new documentary Tony Bennett: Duets II, which airs Friday at 8 p.m. on Prairie Public TV, takes viewers behind the scenes during last year's recording of the legendary crooner's second album of paired-up performances of some of the 20th century's great pop standards.

The 90-minute special is a pleasantly pared-down affair, focused mainly on the music and offering only a small measure of commentary and absolutely nothing in the way of video-age flash and bother. Duets II simply looks in as Bennett and the various artists on this follow-up to 2006's Duets stand behind microphones in recording studios and lay down the vocals that make up the new CD's 17 tracks.

Without exception, these are joyful collaborations in which Bennett's much-younger singing accomplices -- regardless of their current career success or celebrity status -- are clearly in awe as they trade lyrical lines with a living legend.

"Making a duet album, there's a game to it that makes it work," Bennett says in the program's opening moments. "The whole thing is that both singers have to be different -- when you hear Louis Armstrong singing with Ella Fitzgerald, she sings sweet while he sings raspy. ... The success of a duet record is the difference between the two people."

In most cases, it's Bennett who provides a smooth, laid-back foundation upon which his relatively youthful guests can show off their vocal gifts. It needs to be said, however, that none of the duet contributors tries to upstage the old master; every recording is a fairly balanced give-and-take of tuneful phrases.

Canuck crooner Michael Bublé is the film's first featured guest, and his in-studio performance of Don't Get Around Much Anymore is a perfect mood-setter for what follows. Bennett is in great voice, and Bublé is clearly having the time of his life as he trades riffs with his hero. At one point, during the song's instrumental bridge, Bublé strides across the studio and grab's Bennett's hand for a quick dance and twirl before racing back to his microphone in time to resume singing.

It's an infectious, smile-inducing moment. There are many more to come.

The highlights of this PBS/Great Performances offering, however, are Bennett's team-ups with female counterparts, most notably Faith Hill (The Way You Look Tonight), k.d. lang (Blue Velvet), Sheryl Crow (The Girl I Love), Lady Gaga (The Lady Is A Tramp) and, in her much-discussed final recording session, Amy Winehouse (Body And Soul).

Earlier this month, during the U.S. networks' winter press tour in Los Angeles, PBS brought Bennett in to discuss the Duets II project -- a memorable evening that included a 75-minute concert performance followed by a Q&A session with TV critics -- and the 85-year-old singer recalled his duet with Lady Gaga as the most memorable of the recording sessions.

"You know, you meet performers, and then all of sudden you meet someone who has a touch of genius," Bennett explained. "She's highly intelligent, highly creative. She knows so much about performing, (and) she sings magnificently."

Danny Bennett, the singer's son, has been credited with resurrecting his father's floundering career and re-establishing Tony Bennett as a pop-culture mainstay since taking over management of his affairs in the early '80s. He said one of the reasons the crooner has endured in a business that discards artists and styles at an alarming pace is that he simply refuses to consider himself to be a product of a particular era.

"We just finished a documentary called The Zen of Bennett, and in the doc -- I love this moment -- he says, 'My goal in life, when I get older, (is that) I want to show people that I'm getting better.' He's 85-years-old, and he's saying 'when.'

"That's something you can't fake. And it's that mindset, I think, that enables him to constantly push the envelope. And he does -- he takes chances that amaze people. That's something that we just don't have these days. ... He tells me, 'Look, when they zig, I want to zag,' and he's kind of reinventing himself night after night."When asked how it is that his own career has spanned more than 60 years, Bennett offered a much simpler explanation.

"I just kept singing good songs," he said. "I got turned down by an awful lot of fellows in the record business who said, 'You're not what's happening.' And I'd say, 'I know it's going to last, somehow.' So I feel very gratified.'"

As, clearly, do the young upstarts who appear with Bennett in this special and on the Duets II album.

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

TV PREVIEW

Great Performances -- Tony Bennett: Duets II

Featuring Michael Bublé, Faith Hill, k.d. lang, Lady Gaga and Amy Winehouse

Friday at 8 p.m.

PPTV

Tony Bennett Duets with....

(in the order they appear on the CD Tony Bennett: Duets II)

Lady Gaga -- The Lady Is A Tramp

John Mayer -- One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)

Amy Winehouse -- Body And Soul

Michael Bublé -- Don't Get Around Much Anymore

k.d. lang -- Blue Velvet

Aretha Franklin -- How Do You Keep The Music Playing

Sheryl Crow -- The Girl I Love

Willie Nelson -- On The Sunny Side Of The Street

Queen Latifah -- Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)

Norah Jones -- Speak Low

Josh Groban -- This Is All I Ask

Natalie Cole -- Watch What Happens

Andrea Bocelli -- Stranger In Paradise

Faith Hill -- The Way You Look Tonight

Alejandro Sanz -- Yesterday I Heard The Rain

Carrie Underwood -- It Had To Be You

Mariah Carey -- When Do The Bells Ring For Me

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 26, 2012 D1