Music Review: Cheek To Cheek

Album:Cheek To Cheek
Composers: Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga
Music: Interscope Records
This collection of jazz chestnuts has octogenarian jazz stalwart Tony Bennett dueting with provocative pop star Lady Gaga. Opening song Anything Goes is like a descriptor of Gaga’s crazy public persona. She sounds old-school while Bennett’s plain cool. Title track Cheek To Cheek is a drum and bass romper with scatting towards the end.All you need is love is the message in the travel-driven Nature Boy in which Gaga shines. I Can’t Give You Anything But Love is swanky like a chilled cocktail. Gaga’s entry line ‘Gee I like to see you looking swell, Tony,’ leads into a vocal surge. Bennett counters mama ‘monster’ with the almost-sarcastic ‘You’re so charming and gentle’ on 1930s song I Won’t Dance. On Firefly, he captures the sexual frustration of a guy who brings a girl to a party, and then helplessly watches her flirt with other dudes. Gaga’s solo version of Billy Strayhorn’s Lush Life is boring as death. Bennett tells her to buck up on the simple piano-back Sophisticated Lady. Both singers love themselves in the drums, horns and saxophone of Let’s Face the Music. But Beautiful is a 1947 tune about the highs and lows of love, think Gaga’s Bad Romance minus the S&M. Record closer It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) is peppy. The album is just the thing the doctor advised for today’s pop-jaded listeners.