In four days, a very important musical collaboration is going to hit the store shelves. After working together on a cover of “The Lady is a Tramp,” Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga are teaming up again for a full album of Great American Songbook hits, Cheek to Cheek. And I, lovely dilettantes, could not be more excited.
I don’t care how you feel about Lady Gaga. The fact that she is on the front-lines of this project sends an important message to her young fans; namely, that classic tunes are still relevant. She herself has a background in musical theatre, having played Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls and Philia in Forum at her high school. It is my hope that this generation will be pulled into Cheek to Cheek by Gaga’s attachment to it and be exposed to the Great American Songbook. There’s a reason these songs are still being performed 70 years later, and so educating kids on them is super important to their cultural and artistic development. Oh sure, some haters are saying that Gaga should stay mainstream, and I wish I were kidding about that- but the fact remains that we must preserve the quality (re: brilliant) music of yesteryear. Furthermore, I’ve listened to a couple of tracks from the album; Tony Bennett’s smooth jazz voice blends really well with Gaga’s, and they sound like they’ve had a lot of fun with this record.
On the standard CD, there are 11 tracks, but I would recommend getting the Target Deluxe version which has more tracks as well as two bonus numbers that are Broadway standards: “Bewitched” from Pal Joey and the title song from On A Clear Day You Can See Forever. For more information, visit the album’s official website.
Happy crooning!
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