Tony Bennett: The Music Never Ends (2007)
Dear Mom,
I’d read that the television special Tony Bennett: The Music Never Ends (2007) was exceptionally good and had won awards. I finally rented and watched it last night, and I think you’d enjoy it. In the PBS American Masters Series, the film is a loose history of Tony Bennett’s career. I say “loose’ because it is not a standard biography moving year by year with scrupulous attention to detail. It is an artistic combination of archival footage, interviews, and live performances.
In such a melange, everyone will have something that stands out for him/her. I was interested in how American—in the old-fashioned sense of the word—the show was. Early on, Tony says that his rags-to-riches story could only have happened in America. Nowadays the super-wealthy get richer. Tony’s mother worked in a sweat shop making dresses for 1 cent per garment. He went into show business largely to free her from the sewing machine. In his Monterey Jazz Festival performance (the second CD in this package), you see a guy who is mighty happy to have found success in America.
You’ll know all the songs—I did. Whether Tony was singing on black and white TV or at the jazz festival a couple of years ago, I was interested to note that he seldom swings. I found this strange because I have an old vinyl album on which he swings three or four songs better than anyone I can imagine doing them, including his definitive rendition of “Sunny Side of the Street.” Instead of swinging, Tony seems to listen carefully to the jazz pumping away behind him and then sing his tune over top of the music and without getting caught up in the swing. Still, I enjoyed the documentary and the concert. There are not many guys doing this kind of stuff anymore, and it is a treat to see one of the originals enjoying himself so much.