It’s Jazz time baby! Lady Gaga reveals her incredible voice in this first single from her joint album with Tony Bennett, ‘Cheek to Cheek’. “No autotune. No tricks. Pure jazz,” Lady Gaga tweeted.
Most people are unaware of the fact that Lady Gaga has been performing jazz numbers since age 13. Tony Bennett said: “I don’t understand why she had to make contemporary music! When she sings great standards, she does it with such emotion… It will surprise people by the quality of her voice when making quality songs. We sing a duet again on the album, but also separately. With this album, I think she will become bigger than Elvis Presley! Of course we recorded the album in New York. As the saying goes: ‘If you can make it in New York, you’ll make it anywhere.”
Gaga commented on the collaboration “Cheek To Cheek came out of a very organic friendship and relationship that Tony and I have built over the years and it truly was a collaborative effort. It was important to Tony that this was a jazz record. I’ve been singing jazz since I was a child and really wanted to show the authentic side of the genre. We made an album of jazz classics, but it has a modern twist.”
“I love everything about working with Tony – he’s such a legend, and because of that I get to learn so much when we sing together. We met 3 or 4 years years ago and started recording Cheek to Cheek a couple of years ago.”
The unusual pair first collaborated in 2011 with “The Lady Is a Tramp” for Tony Bennett’s Grammy Award-winning album Duets II. They have performed together many times this year including an appearance at the Montreal Jazz Festival.
Cheek to Cheek features jazz musicians that are associated with both artists, including Gray Sargent, Mike Renzi, Harold Jones and Marshall Wood. Jazz soloists include tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and flautist Paul Horn, who passed away earlier this month, according to a press release. The album features such standards as “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” “Lush Life,” “Sophisticated Lady,” and more.
Appearing yesterday (July 29) on the ‘Today Show’ they announced that the album will finally be released on September 23 – although the single ‘Anything Goes’ is now available on iTunes.
