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Tony Bennett
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Tony Bennett was a singer who found popular success very early on, yet once he established himself as a pop star, devoted himself completely to proving that he was an artist as well. Among other things, he was a jazz artist from the beginning, and as he got better and better at it, was increasingly accepted by the jazz world. As Mitch Miller, Bennett’s longtime producer and sparring partner, observed, “Whenever Tony has a hit record, he wants to make a jazz album.” This was true in the sense that all of Bennett’s early original albums were jazz oriented in some way. In 1958, Bennett was the first mainstream star vocalist to do an album with Count Basie, who became a lifelong friend. Bennett ... recorded with jazz luminaries like Art Blakey, Bill Evans and Zoot Sims, and toured extensively with Duke Ellington and Woody Herman.
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Tony Bennett is an artist who moves the hearts and touches the souls of audiences. He's the singer's singer and has received high praise from his colleagues through the years. Tony Bennett's career has enjoyed three distinct phases, each of them very successful. In the early '50s, he scored a series of major hits that made him one of the most popular recording artists of the time. In the early '60s, he mounted a comeback as more of an adult-album seller. And from the mid-'80s on, he achieved renewed popularity with generations of listeners who hadn't been born when he first appeared.
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Throughout his career, Tony Bennett has always put his heart and time into humanitarian concerns. He has raised millions of dollars for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation which established a research fund in his name. His original paintings each year grace the cover of the American Cancer Society's annual holiday greeting card, proceeds from which are earmarked for cancer research. He is active in environmental concerns and has performed at fundraisers for both the Walden Woods Foundation and the Save the Rainforest Foundation. The Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta bestowed upon him their "Salute to Greatness Award" for his efforts to fight discrimination. He conceived and spearheaded the effort to honor his great friend with the establishment of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts which opened its doors as a New York City public high school offering an extensive arts curriculum in September of 2001.
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Tony Bennett has remained as popular as ever. He grew up in the Astoria section of the borough of Queens in New York City under the name Anthony Dominick Benedetto. His father, a grocer, died when he was about ten after a lingering illness that had forced his mother to become a seamstress to support the family of five. By then, he was already starting to attract notice as a singer, performing beside Mayor Fiorello La Guardia at the opening of the Triborough Bridge in 1936. By his teens, Bennett had set his sights on becoming a professional singer. After briefly attending the High School of Industrial Arts (now known as the High School of Art and Design), where he gained training as a painter, he dropped out of school at 16 to earn money to help support his family, meanwhile ... performing at amateur shows.
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Tony Bennett was warned by Miller not to imitate Frank Sinatra (who was just then leaving Columbia). Tony Bennett began his career as a crooner singing commercial pop tunes. His first big hit was "Because of You", a ballad produced by Miller with a lush orchestral arrangement from Percy Faith. It started out gaining popularity on jukeboxes, then reached #1 on the pop charts in 1951 and stayed there for 10 weeks, selling over a million copies. This was followed to the top later that year by a similarly-styled rendition of Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart", which helped introduce Williams and country music in general to a wider, more national audience.
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Tony Bennett is beloved as one of the premiere interpreters of the Great American Songbook. The new documentary will follow Bennett's more than 50 years in the music and entertainment industries against the backdrop of a changing America. Weaving seldom seen archival footage with never before seen excerpts of Bennett's recent premier performance at the Monterey Jazz festival -- highlighted by an on-camera interview conducted by Eastwood that explores the essence of Bennett's artistry -- the film will present an exceptional man in a rare way: a living legend through his life, times and music.
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Tony Bennett