Following the enormous success of his #1, Grammy-Award winning album with Lady Gaga, Cheek To Cheek, this new release continues the classic series of Tony Bennett album releases celebrating the essentials of the Great American Songbook. The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern is an appreciation of the genius of Jerome David Kern (1885-1945), one of the 20th century's most important American composers of musical theater and popular music.
Tony Bennett is the only artist to successfully bridge the worlds of pop music and jazz on an international scale for over 60 years. The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern become parts of a timeless legacy of recordings that Bennett has done throughout his career that have embraced both genres, in particular the revered piano jazz albums that he recorded with the late Bill Evans in 1975 and 1977. Tony has become synonymous with the pop/jazz connection and in recent years has been a mentor to contemporary artists such as Lady Gaga and the late Amy Winehouse in encouraging them to embrace jazz music. With his 90th birthday less than a year away, The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern defines what makes Tony Bennett unique in the pantheon of great singers and is a testament to the legacy that he continues to create as a recording artist and influence in the music industry.
Over the course of his career, Kern composed more than 700 songs, creating musical elements used in more than 100 stage works, collaborating with the greatest lyricists and librettists of the era including P.G. Wodehouse, Oscar Hammerstein II, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin, E.Y. Harburg and many others on a seemingly limitless repertoire of classic songs including "Ol' Man River," "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "The Way You Look Tonight," "Long Ago and Far Away" and many more.
New York native Jerome Kern was a major force on Broadway and in Hollywood musicals in a career that spanned more than four decades. He expanded on earlier musical theater traditions, from vaudeville to operetta, to embrace new dance rhythms, syncopation and jazz progressions and helped invent the modern musical template. While many of his Broadway musicals and Hollywood musical films were contemporary smash hits, Kern is perhaps best remembered today through revivals of "Show Boat," one of his signature achievements.
In his liner notes for The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern, music historian Will Friedwald describes Kern as "...the key link between the great music of historical and contemporary classics, a direct connection between Brahms and Charlie Parker....a key architect of a uniquely American art form that would eventually take shape as musical theater....one of the founding fathers of a term that Tony Bennett later coined himself, 'the Great American Songbook.'" Friedwald writes about music and popular culture for The Wall Street Journal, worked with Tony Bennett on Tony's "The Good Life" memoir, and is author of eight books including the award-winning "A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers," "Sinatra! The Song Is You," "Stardust Melodies," and "Jazz Singing."
"The idea of a Kern Songbook project was Tony's," writes Will Friedwald, "thereby placing Kern on the very short list of canonical composers (Rodgers & Hart, Harold Arlen, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, and Cy Coleman) who have been the beneficiaries of an entire album by Bennett. It was also Bennett's idea to create the album in collaboration with the remarkable Bill Charlap....who can also take a great song we all know by heart and make us feel like we've never heard it before."
Playing alongside Tony Bennett and Bill Charlap on The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern are pianist Renee Rosnes (on the piano duet pieces), Peter Washington (bass) and Kenny Washington (drums). Unrelated, though sharing the same last name, Peter and Kenny have been performing with Bill Charlap for nearly two decades and pianist Renee Rosnes has been Charlap's life partner for close to 10 years.
With more than 700 Jerome Kern compositions to choose from, the set list for The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern is a distillation of essential highlights from a boundless catalog. With these interpretations of some of Jerome Kern's finest songs, Tony Bennett and Bill Charlap offer a definitive introduction to Kern's music while providing a deep understanding of the abiding and universal qualities of these songs.
TONY BENNETT & BILL CHARLAP THE SILVER LINING: THE SONGS OF JEROME KERN
Musicians:
Vocals: Tony Bennett
Pianos: Bill Charlap & Renee Rosnes
Bass: Peter Washington
Drums: Kenny Washington
Arranged by Tony Bennett and Bill Charlap
Tracks in Alphabetical Order (14 total)
ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE (single piano)
DEARLY BELOVED (trio)
I WON'T DANCE (trio)
I'M OLD FASHIONED (trio)
LOOK FOR THE SILVER LINING (piano duet)
LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY (piano duet)
MAKE BELIEVE (single piano)
NOBODY ELSE BUT ME (trio)
PICK YOURSELF UP (trio)
THE LAST TIME I SAW PARIS (piano duet)
THE SONG IS YOU (piano duet)
THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT (single piano)
THEY DIDN'T BELIEVE ME (trio)
YESTERDAYS (trio)
*Single piano is Bill Charlap
*Piano duet is Bill Charlap & Renee Rosnes
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