“The record company asked why I wanted to record old songs, so I said, ‘Well, I like ’em better than the new ones’,” says Tony Bennett, midway through a show comprised of his beloved jazz standards. By this definition, Lady Gaga should be an artist he would go out of his way to avoid, but the two have bonded over their love of the Great American Songbook, and so here they are together: jazz royalty and pop’s Mother Monster. Touring to promote their successful duets album, Cheek to Cheek – of which Bennett wisecracks: “We’d like you to buy it – she really needs the money” – they’re clearly having a wonderful time.
The relationship between the 88-year-old and the 29-year-old is mutually beneficial: he gives her gravitas, she gives him energy – and the chemistry is real. Having said that, Bennett is on stage more often than Gaga, and despite their equal billing, this often feels like his gig. No bad thing, though, when he huskily finds genuine meaning in songs he’s sung for 60 years. There are dents in the rich fabric of his voice, especially apparent when a segment of the on-stage big band detaches to form an intimate small unit; his struggle for the top notes of Stranger in Paradise is humbling testament to his status as the last surviving member of the jazz-era elite. Yet he makes easy work of I Left My Heart in San Francisco, and, duetting with Gaga, provides the subtlety to her unfettered drama.
Their musical affinity yields some great moments. I Can’t Give You Anything But Love swings jubilantly; Nature Boy, rejigged as an emotionally depleted lounge ballad, is an alluring contrast of vocal textures. There’s much chaste flirtation, mainly on Gaga’s side; she frequently drapes a sequined arm around Bennett’s blue-suited shoulders, and is unable to resist changing a line in I Won’t Dance to: “You’re gentle, ’specially when we do the horizontal.” It is all grounded in a reverence for him that shows Gaga is very much the junior partner.
The age gap is only really evident, though, during her solo numbers, which are accompanied by multiple costume changes. (Bennett, it hardly needs saying, sticks to his suit.) There’s a bravura La Vie en Rose and a Vegas-brassy Bang Bang; this is where she becomes sweary, empathetic Mother Monster, enjoining us to care about each other. It exemplifies the fun that can come of bringing together opposites.
