by Tony Bennett
Nineteen seventy-two was a rough year for Lena. Within a very short period of time shed lost the three most important men in her life: her father, her son Teddy, and her husband of twenty years, Lennie Hayton. Yet you’d never know it from looking at her. She was probably the most professional performer I’ve ever worked with. She never missed a show and she always gave one hundred percent. Lena taught me a lot about discipline. Even at rehearsals she was thrilling to watch. I’d never seen that kind of intensity in anyone before, that determination to do everything just right.
I thought it would be more effective to start with something subtle, so we opened the show singing two songs together, usually “The Look of Love” and “Something.” Then Lena and her conductor, Robert Freedman, did a forty-five minute set together, which included some of her perennial hits. After intermission, I performed. Lena and I then closed the show together with a medley of Harold Arlen songs that was seventeen minutes long. What a night!
John Bunch moved on in the fall of 1972 and Bernie Leighton replaced him for a few months and played on my second MGM/Verve album, Listen Easy.
Then Torrie Zito took over and stayed with me for six years, as my pianist, conductor, and orchestrator. Over the years we worked together on three albums, Once in My Life, Yesterday I Heard the Rain, and I Gotta Be Me.
While I was with MGM/Verve, Columbia tried to patch things up with me, particularly after Clive Davis left in May of 1973. They approached Derek and offered a very generous deal: an imprint label within Columbia—which meant that I would be running my own record label, deciding what albums I wanted to make, and bringing in other artists to record for me. But I wasn’t ready to go back to Columbia yet.
When I returned to the States in late 1972, my old buddy Dave Victorson was running the Las Vegas Hilton. He offered me an eighteen-month contract, giving me the run of the house, letting me put on whatever kind of shows I wanted—all because I once helped him when he was down on his luck.
So in May 1973 Dave and I had installed an 109-man philharmonic orchestra in the Hilton. I can still see all those men up there on stage: we’d flown them in from all over the country the most spectacular band that ever played Vegas. Bob Farnon did the orchestrations, and Louis Bellson joined us on stage. It was a fantastic show.
When I was ready to go back on the road, I put together the great trio that worked with me all through the 1970s: John Giuffrida on bass; Chuck Hughes and then, for most of the decade, Joe Cocuzzo on drums; and Torrie Zito on piano. Joe is a world-class drummer, particularly sensitive when playing with singers. We’d first worked together back in 1969 when I was on tour with Louis Bellson. Louis was going out to play and conduct for his wife, Pearl Bailey, and I needed a drummer right away for an upcoming show at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington. Joe Soldo—who hired musicians for me when I was on the road—heard that Joe was available, and he came in and played the whole show for me without a rehearsal. After the show I told him, “You know what? I just had Louis Bellson play for me all last week, and tonight you’re there with the best of them.” That was my way of saying, “Welcome aboard.” Joe played for me pretty regularly between 1969 and the start of my “English period” in 1971, and then came back and joined my trio in 1973.
My main focus in late 1973 became the brilliant trumpet playing of Ruby Braff. I’d known Ruby since 1951 when I first played Chicago. Ruby heard George Barnes and Bucky Pizzarelli playing at the St. Regis Hotel in New York, and he sat in with the two guitarists. He loved the way that combination sounded, and suggested to George that they start a group. They gradually worked out a lineup of two guitars, a trumpet, and a bass. When I heard about this group, I had to check them out. I thought they were great, and Ruby said to me, “Why don’t you come and sing a couple of tunes with us, and relax for a while, you know?” I was singing almost exclusively with big bands then, and even with a good sound system I always had to belt it out to be heard above the music.
I liked the groove I got into with this intimate group so much that I did two special concerts with them at Alice Tully Hall in New York. Ruby and George played the first half instrumentally, and then I came out in the second half and sang with them—two entire evenings of Rodgers and Hart. Two weeks later I recorded twenty-four Rodgers and Hart songs with Ruby and George, with Frank Laico as engineer. It was later released as Tony Bennett: The Rodgers and Hart Songbook.
On April 7, 1974, Sandra gave birth to our second daughter. We named her Antonia in keeping with the long tradition of Antonios and Antoinettes in the Benedetto and Suraci families. Many years later I asked Bob Wells and Jack Segal, who had written “When Joanna Loved Me,” to write a song for Antonia, since I wanted to honor both of my daughters in song. They came up with a beauty, and I recorded “Antonia” in 1989.
I now had two beautiful daughters and we moved to Los Angeles and started living the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle—the good and the bad. We had the big beautiful house in Beverly Hills, the celebrity friends, and the endless round of parties.
On top of everything else, the seventies drug scene was getting out of control. At every big party I’d go to, people were high on something. Cocaine flowed as freely as champagne, and soon I began joining in the festivities. At first it seemed like the hip thing to do, but as time went on it got harder and harder to refuse it when it was offered. Compounded with my pot smoking, the whole thing started sneaking up on me.
Sandra thought that I might want to get back into making pictures, but I just didn’t have a passion for it. Cary Grant set me straight about that. He loved the idea that I traveled all over the world doing concerts, and one time he said to me, “Tony, what you do is beautiful, the way you go out and meet the people where they live. Making movies would be boring for you. You sit around for hours while somebody changes a lightbulb. You were right not to get mixed up in it.” He actually envied me for being able to work in front of live audiences all over the world. What a life, what an education. There’s nothing like performing.
I got to see a lot of Cary Grant during this period of my life. There were some actors that I had infinite admiration for, and Mr. Grant was one of them, so it was nice to be able to count him among my friends. One day I got a call from Cary and he’d seen my painting “South of France” when I showed it to Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, He told me, “I want to buy that painting!” I was thrilled that he liked it, and I told him I’d be happy to give it to him as a gift, but he insisted on buying the painting, and he hung it in his home in the Hollywood Hills.
But the greatest thing about living in L.A. was the chance to get to know two of my biggest idols, Fred Astaire and Ella Fitzgerald. Fred was well over seventy by the time we got acquainted, but he was still very active. Every morning he’d take his daily constitutional, and bed walk right past my house. He was so graceful he actually looked like he was floating as he strolled by.
My friend the dancer John Brascia introduced me to Fred Astaire. Fred told me that he was no longer athletic and that he only acted and wrote songs these days. We were sitting in a little art studio I had, completely separate from the rest of the house, and listening to the local jazz station. I had to go back to the main house for a few minutes to answer the phone. When I returned, I caught Fred Astaire dancing to a song on the radio. It was tremendous. He stopped as soon as he noticed me and his face turned red. He asked me who that was singing the blues, and I told him Big Joe Turner. Fred said, “It’s always been that way. When I hear the right beat, I just have to dance.” Where was my video camera when I needed it?
As I got to know him better, I found out about how he rehearsed. He always got involved in the process and contributed his own ideas. His official choreographer was Hermes Pan, but essentially Fred co-choreographed all of his dances. Hermes told me the secret of Fred’s genius was that he knew what to leave out. In other words, it wasn’t what he did in the dance, it was how he eliminated extraneous movements and made everything look so economical and effortless.
One time I was talking to one of the owners of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and I happened to mention I was friendly with Fred Astaire. He was flabbergasted. “Do you really know Fred Astaire?” he asked. When I assured him that I did, he took out a blank check and wrote Fred’s name in the “pay to the order of” line, leaving the amount blank. He handed me the check and said, “You tell Mr. Astaire that if he’ll play a week here in Vegas, he can fill in any amount he likes. He doesn’t even have to dance. I don’t care what he does.” I took that check to Fred, but I wasn’t surprised when he passed on it.
I grew up listening to Ella Fitzgerald, and I never, ever dreamed that I’d become her friend. We first met in 1952 on the occasion of my mother’s birthday. I told my mother I’d take her to any show she wanted to go to, and she surprised the hell out of me when she said, “I want to see Ella Fitzgerald!” Ella was working at Birdland, and I never thought I’d see my mother in Birdland in a million years, but there we were, and we had the greatest time.
Ella came up to us after the show and introduced herself—as if she needed an introduction!—and I told her it was my mom’s birthday. Ella wished her a special day and told her she was honored that she’d chosen to spend it watching her perform. Then Ella turned to me and said, “I love your recording of ‘Blue Velvet.’” I couldn’t believe it—Ella Fitzgerald saying that to me! I carry that memory around with me as a badge of honor.
I got to know Ella very well in California. She was a great human being. I often told her she was the best singer I’d ever heard in my life. She said, “No, no, everybody’s good! There are so many wonderful singers out there.” Ella was a truly humble person. When she toured with the Count Basie band, she could have flown first class like most stars do when they work with the big bands, but Ella preferred to stay with the boys on the bus; she would never play the star and leave them. The two of us spent decades crisscrossing the country, and we frequently ran into each other. It didn’t matter where she was going or how many times she’d already played a particular town. She loved her audiences and couldn’t wait to entertain them.
Ella wasn’t just a singer; she was a real musician, and her voice was her instrument. When she sang without words, it wasn’t just scat-singing; it was a remarkable kind of nonverbal communication. She sang all over the world—China, Germany, South America, Africa—and never worried about the language barrier. When Ella scatted, the whole world understood and cheered her on.
We always spent Christmas with her. I took Joanna and Antonia over to Ella’s house every Christmas Eve, and she’d cook up a storm, the best food you could ever dream up. We’d ring her doorbell and she’d open the door and say, “Oh, my daughters are finally here!”
Sammy Cahn lived next door. He used to tell me to come over anytime I wanted to borrow a cup of song.
Derek Boulton and I parted company in 1975, and for a year or so I worked with my friend Jack Rollins, Jack’s wife, Jane Martin, had been a backup singer on my very first recording date for Leslie Records back around 1949, and wed always kept in touch, Jack is one of the great managers in show business history—he helped make the careers of Woody Allen, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and Lenny Bruce—but until 1975 the timing had been off for both of us.
Jack was always after me to put more humor in my act. If something happens in the concert hall or club where I’m working, I can usually come up with a spontaneously funny line about it, but Jack was insistent that I put more humor into my show.
One day we were walking down the street to an appointment, and I was telling Jack that if I’m getting four standing ovations every night without one-liners, maybe I’m doing something right. But he wasn’t interested. We tried to hail a cab on Madison Avenue, but it was the lunch hour and there wasn’t a taxi in sight. After about fifteen minutes a police car stopped at a red light. The cop looked at me and said, “Hey, how you doin’, Tony?”
“Fine.” I said. “Are you going uptown?”
And the cop said, “Yeah, hop in!”
So there we were, riding uptown in the back of a police car, and Jack Rollins turned to me and said, “Now this is funny!”
Jack was with me when, at long last, I started my very own independent label, something I’d wanted for years. The idea first began to gel around 1972 when I met Bill Hassett, a successful realtor in Buffalo who owned the Statler Hilton Hotel there. We thought that between his business acumen and my musical know-how we ought to be able to get something going. It turned out that it took a lot more than that, but I wouldn’t find that out until a couple of years and a couple of hundred thousand dollars later.
We named our company Tobill Enterprises, and I called our label Improv. Bill and I owned the operation jointly. It was the crystallization of everything I’d been working for: I’d be the central artist on the label, but I’d sign top-quality jazz artists like Bill Evans, Torrie Zito, Earl Hines, Jimmy and Marian McPartland, Charlie Byrd, and Ruby Braff.
Part of the attraction was that Bill had a jazz room in his hotel called the Downtown Club. I figured we could book talent for the club and that way find potential artists we might want to record. This happened with “Fatha” Hines, whose Improv album was titled Live in Buffalo.
I talked to my son Danny, who was now twenty-one, about this venture. Danny was performing in rock bands with his brother, Daegal, but he always took a keen interest in the business side of music. He knew where I was coming from, that I wanted to be in a situation where I could call my own shots. He said, “You can make great records, you can have great album covers, but distribution is the key to success.”
I knew there were independent labels with independent distribution, but it was a hard road to travel. Bill’s idea was to build up a network of independent distributors in this country and around the world.
Once again, Columbia Records caught wind of my plans and offered to take over our distribution. I told Bill about Columbia’s offer, but he said, “No, let’s not do it that way. We want to do this entirely on our own.” That was the way he’d always made money in the hotel and real estate business in Buffalo, but, as we were to learn, it wasn’t the best way to sell records.
I wasn’t convinced it was the right way to go, so I asked Danny if he’d go to Buffalo and talk it over with Bill. Danny discussed our concerns, but Bill insisted that we take the independent route. I discussed the matter with Jack, and he felt confident that we should move ahead and so we signed the agreement.
We launched the new label with a bang with Life Is Beautiful named after a song written by Fred Astaire. In addition to Torrie Zito arranging and conducting, Frank Laico was engineer and Rudy DeHarak handled the art direction for the album cover, a beautiful photo of myself holding a red-haired baby Antonia, with six-year-old Joanna peering over my shoulder. The album itself was a wonderful mix of styles, with everything from Brazilian tunes to classics by major American songwriters.
My other major project on Improv was “The Cole Porter Medley” eventually released on an album called The Special Magic of Tony Bennett. The Porter medley was the most ambitious thing I did with Torrie Zito in the seventies. This was a special project, not something I would have been able to do if I was with a major label.
My favorites were the two albums I did with Bill Evans, the greatest and most influential jazz pianist of his generation. My dear friend, the great jazz singer Annie Ross, came up with the idea of my making an album with Bill, I’d known her since the early fifties when she was singing with the group Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross.
One night in London when Annie, her husband, and I were having dinner at some Italian restaurant in Soho, she brought up the Bill Evans idea. We all agreed it was an excellent suggestion and settled in to enjoy our meal. Next thing you know, a waiter passed me the word that Sinatra’s people had phoned and “The Old Man” himself was going to be there in about ten minutes. I told Annie, “Watch the waiters.” The whole staff snapped to attention, like the inspector general w
as about to descend on the joint. Everybody was all but saluting when Sinatra arrived with his daughter, Tina, and Robert Wagner. I went over to say hello, and Frank invited the three of us to join his party. We spent the whole evening listening to Frank talking about his big-band days, how he learned things like never to cross his legs while sitting on the bandstand because it takes the crease out of your trousers. We were more than content just to listen to him talk. It was a rare and special night.
Bill Evans was there when I sang with Dave Brubeck at the all-star concert on the White House lawn in 1962. By the sixties, especially after his tenure with the Miles Davis Sextet and with his own groundbreaking trio, Bill had become the most-listened-to jazz pianist in the world. He recorded with very few singers, though, so I was surprised when Annie suggested that Bill and I work together. Bill happened to be playing in London at Ronnie Scott’s, so John Bunch—who was still with me then—and I went down to hear Bill’s latest trio, which impressed us mightily. My original idea was to make an album with my voice and two pianos. I wanted to have both Bill Evans and John Bunch, but John discouraged me—he said it would be better with Bill Evans alone.
In the spring of 1975 we worked out an arrangement with Bill’s manager, Helen Keane, to tape two albums together. It was the same kind of reciprocal deal I made with Count Basie: we’d do one album for Improv and another for Fantasy, the label Bill was under contract to. The Fantasy album, titled The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album, came out in June 1975, and the following September we recorded Tony Bennett & Bill Evans Together Again for Improv.
Bill and I got along famously. Before the dates he said to me, “Keep your cronies at home and I’ll do the same.” It was just Helen, Bill, one engineer, and me in the studio. We didn’t want anyone around to distract us. And as the records show, it was a tremendously intimate experience. I hadn’t recorded with just piano since Tony Sings for Two, fifteen years earlier, and Bill was accustomed to having a bass and drummer with him, so both of us were more exposed than usual.