Tony Bennett Battling Alzheimer's (take 2)

[Ken Dryden]

I was briefly a member of AARP but left after the initial two years. Too bad this kind of writing wasn't present in their magazine back then.

I can't imagine what families with a member suffering from Alzheimer's experience, though this excellent article gave some idea.

 

 

[Big Beat Steve]

If the usual biographies are a yardstick, Alzheimer does happen to pro musicans, and it is tragic in every case. Though not all of them are as high-profile in the media as Tony Bennett.
Those that come to mind right now are Ian Carr, drummer Gus Johnson, R&B pianist/vocalist Betty Hall Jones, drummer Grady Tate, George Russell - and, as the obits said, Oscar Peterson too. And no doubt the actual list is much longer. (Max Roach too, I just found out online)

I was relieved to see my ma apparently immune from any such sufferings until the day she died at 96 last October. Though bodily frail for years, her mind was aware and sharp to the end (to the extent that deteriorating hearing and eyesight permitted). But visiting her in her nursing home did show the differences every time as the dining room for the "advanced nursing cases" was next door to my mother's apartment. It was a sad sight to see those people wither away mentally in such a dramatic way.

Edited February 2, 2021 by Big Beat Steve

[hopkins]

2 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:

wholeheartedly agree. I work for Robert Wilson, the theater director and visual artist, and he has collaborated with Gaga. Hence I have a soft spot for her. She seems like a genuine person.

Yes, she is a fine singer, and does seem genuine. I really enjoyed watching here in the remake of that Judy Garland movie. But not my style of singing when it comes to "Cheek to Cheek"... Her national anthem during the inauguration was nice - but then again everything that day was glorious.

Back to Tony.

Edited February 2, 2021 by hopkins

[bebopbob]

I remember picking up some compact discs of Tony around 2014-2015 of older Columbia recordings which had not been previously released on compact disc.

The compact discs I picked up at that time were:

In Person with Count Basie

Sings A String of Harold Arlen 

I Wanna Be Around.

i then saw that there were CDR pressings of many of his Columbia LPs previously unavailable on compact disc which I avoided and continue to avoid as CDRs generally do not hold up over time. 

Does anyone have a list of the Columbia LPs that were actually re-issued as separate CDs - not CDRs around the  time when the Complete Tony Bennett Collection was issued 8-10 years ago? 

 Thanks,

Bob

[duaneiac]

And so, the curtain falls --

Tony Bennett's Son on Why the Legend's Radio City Music Hall Shows Went So Well -- And Why There Won't Be More

[Hardbopjazz]

Tony has retired after his two concerts last week with Lady Gaga. 
 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/tony-bennett-retires-from-performing-1211694/?fbclid=IwAR0DERWBzZ6k6KM9vOK4NUEnGVLj9Dw0niRJ5fh3jhChmkWtg8iMCtOxJZI

[gmonahan]

On 8/13/2021 at 8:21 PM, duaneiac said:

And so, the curtain falls --

Tony Bennett's Son on Why the Legend's Radio City Music Hall Shows Went So Well -- And Why There Won't Be More

"I love being a singer!" That brought a bit of mist to my eyes. He has had an epic career.

 

 

gregmo

[Mark Stryker]

This 60 Minutes  piece is quite moving. It lets you see exactly what Tony can and cannot do. I would add that  among the extraordinary and deeply emotional aspects of witnessing Bennett's ability to sing while otherwise barely being able to communicate due to Alzheimer's, is that at 95 his voice is still in good enough to shape physically to sing at all. So beyond the pondering the miracles of the brain and the power of music, when I see Bennett it reminds me that I don't know if any one in any idiom sang so well so late in life -- he sound so great even in his 80s -- check out the record of Jerome Kern material with the Bill Charlap Trio. He really took care of his voice. I asked him about this once, and he told me that after WWII, when he studied at the American Theatre Wing, he was taught some fairly simple bel canto warm-up vocal exercises and he continued to do them everyday of his life for about 15 minutes. They were focused on vowel sounds, and he didn't sing them full out. He basically hummed his way through them until he could feel the center of his voice. I wonder if he's still doing these daily vocal calisthenics. I bet he is. He was/is a great artist but also a PROFESSIONAL musician.