I came from a some kind of 'comic book' about Such a cute love story that I'm so grateful and glad to it,,cause now I now more about this Beautiful antique piece of art that's make me feel rlly lucky to know it 💞✨
Thanks to Siriusly Sinatra's programmer Jersey Lou Simon, for including this favorite tonight - after giving us another year's worth of inspired and inspiring song selections. Immediately searched RU-vid for the studio recording of Tony Bennett & Bill Evans' 1977 take on LUCKY TO BE ME. Luckily for us all . . . There is a Canadian television recording from 1976 - when the two musical giants were preparing their second album “Together Again” which included this song as Track 2. Visiting Toronto in mid-winter, straight from someplace warm, a well-tanned middle-aged Tony Bennett works his magic with a hand-held Electrovoice mic (found in every TV studio and newsroom in those days). Both artists make it look so easy! Especially Bill Evans' minute-long musical bridge with most every note a chord. Tony's reading of the lyric is simply unsurpassed - to this day, 44 years on. Love what he does with words like these: I am simply thunderstruck - at this change, in my luck I knew at once, I wanted you -- never dreamed you'd want me too! I'm so proud - you chose me from all the crowd There's no other guy, I'd rather be Just so lucky to be me! The song is from On the Town - a Broadway and film musical -- music by Leonard Bernstein, book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green - which introduced several popular and classic songs, among them "New York, New York", "Lonely Town", and "Some Other Time". The story concerns three American sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City during wartime 1944. Each of the three meets and quickly connects with a woman. On the Town was first produced on Broadway in 1944 and was made into a film in 1949, although the film replaced all but four of the original Broadway numbers with Hollywood-written substitutes. [But not LUCKY TO BE ME: a footnote to the Wikipedia entry: "Although Sinatra did not sing it in the film, he recorded Lonely Town for his 1957 album Where Are You? with an arrangement by Gordon Jenkins." Thanks, Karel Cuelenaere ROIO Archive for sharing this one. Celebrated this night at Sinatra Family - forum - "Siriusly Sinatra" - MY FAVORITE VERSION, YOURS TOO? sinatrafamily.com/forum/showthread.php/50225-My-Favorite-Version-%28yours-too-%29?p=1301152#post1301152
It's a TV broadcast where he plays a duet with a singer way more famous than him. The focus wasn't on him and he took the supporting role like he should. Imo it's great for what it is.
Yea, would have been better if Bill just went off and took over, stepping on the vocal, making it all about him, just showing everyone his skills. Cmon man, this is actually an example of a musician fitting in the piece exaclty as they want it to be. He knows what he is capable of, doesnt mean he had to go there every chance he could get. you should know better
Music with others involves collaboration, look it up. And in fact, Bill does his own take on the melody in the solo section, so I don't know what are you talking about. I guess you don't play with vocalists?
Not to be tedious (whoops! too late ;) ) A further point about this collaboration was this. Bill was justly praised for his incredibly individualistic improv style in harmonic, rhythmic and melodic ways and his lovely "touch" on the piano. But it was still an open question as to whether he could subsume his style enough to accompany a singer to play "for the song". He could, and did, superbly. Tony Bennett talks about how Bill would spend about an hour on each song by himself, improvising various acompaniments in Tony's vocal key before he was satisfied with his final arrangement, then they would record it. So Bill was creating the support that he wanted that would fit what Tony could do. That is musicianship, in my book.
True, Bill doesn't seem on during this one, and it doesn't help that the television producer limited him to a half chorus or so. The two Evans/Bennett albums are much more a meeting of equals, and Evans played beautifully and expansively on them. Evans was not terribly healthy or happy during the final years of his life, and you can certainly see the swollen hands in this video that show it. He could still reach the heights in this era--"You Must Believe in Spring" was recorded about 8-10 months after this video. Some fans prize his final recordings from The Keystone in San Francisco above all others (though I don't find them that transcendent). What was one of his biggest artistic moments was "Everybody Digs Bill Evans" from 1958, which featured this song. His impressionistic solo version of this song feels like it was ahead of its time by at least 10 years. Or rather, it took solo jazz pianists 10 years to absorb Bill's innovations.
