![tony bennett lady gaga cheek to cheek tour tony bennett lady gaga cheek to cheek tour](https://i.pinimg.com/236x/99/86/63/99866306645445cecc6c594d3f21731c.jpg)
“There’s a part of me that has been quiet for a long time that is now being reawakened, after years of producers and record-label people telling me to make my voice sound more radio-friendly.”Ĭertainly, the 11 songs on the standard edition, which were all recorded live with a band, introduced a richer, more authentic timbre to a voice people thought they had the full measure of. “It’s me rebelling against my own pop music,” she said on the album’s release. Returning to the genre again was, she says, liberating. She’d loved the singer since she was a girl, and his music helped her develop her voice she had even been picked from her school to perform at a state-wide jazz competition. Gaga later admitted to journalists that the thought of working with Bennett had terrified her. “It’s me rebelling against my own pop music” It wasn’t until a 2013 reunion at one of President Barack Obama’s ceremonial balls that Gaga was ready to announce that the project was definitely going ahead, revealing the name of the record. That collaboration turned out so well that the pair discussed a more ambitious project, but it would take time for their busy schedules to synchronize. The genesis of the duets album lay in a New York charity gala held three years earlier, when the jazz legend met the contemporary superstar and asked her to record “The Lady Is A Tramp” for his upcoming second duets project.
![tony bennett lady gaga cheek to cheek tour tony bennett lady gaga cheek to cheek tour](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2EXG7B8/the-two-american-singers-lady-gaga-and-tony-bennett-in-concert-with-the-cheek-to-cheek-tour-at-umbia-jazz-at-the-arena-santa-giuliana-perugia-italy-july-15th-2015-photo-by-marco-piraccinimondadori-portfoliosipa-usa-2EXG7B8.jpg)
It’s likely that the solo release delayed the collaborative one, as most of the Cheek To Cheek recordings had been completed during spring 2013. Her previous studio set – the ambitious ARTPOP, issued the previous year – attracted the first mixed notices of her career and a slower, if still impressive, sales start. That familiarity was, however, beginning to lose its shine for some. With a sold-out crowd, the Cosmopolitan easily competed with the hotter nightclubs in the area (even inside its own property), with Drake performing New Years Eve at Marquee, Iggy Azaliea at Drai’s, Robin Thicke at Foxtail and Macklemore + Ryan Lewis at 1 OAK.By the time of Cheek To Cheek’s release, on September 23, 2014, the world had become more than familiar with Gaga’s increasingly out-there dance-pop extravagance. The show also is a win for the Cosmopolitan, which built the Chelsea in order to regularly attract bigger music acts to a large theater that isn’t devoted to a single artists like Britney Spears, across the street at Planet Hollywood, or Celine Dion in Caesars. The tour’s first ticketed performance was held Dec. The album was recorded in Gotham and has been a top-seller worldwide since its release in September. Given the stature of its two stars, “Cheek to Cheek” needed to launch in Las Vegas - and from inside the New York-themed Chelsea. But the energy in the room always lit up once Gaga took the stage. In their setlist Bennett and Gaga smartly held off on featuring too many duets during “Cheek to Cheek,” giving each of them equal time to shine with solo numbers. Suddenly, she’s no longer the risque pop singer who pushes the boundaries for headline-grabbing sake, but the approachable talented young artist (she’s 28) who can stand alongside the best of them - and actually sound as they do in their songs when they perform live, something many pop artists struggle to do. That, and her confident performance, surely went over well with the older crowd in the audience, and could pay off in the future as she releases new albums. Gaga never tried to upstage Bennett, often showing restraint and making sure to pay respect to the iconic crooner. Yet it was their duets of songs like “I Won’t Dance,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got That Swing)” and “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” that audiences clearly came to see, and showed off the chemistry between the two. Backed by the Brian Newman Quartet, her explosive rendition of “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down),” as she wore a shiny silver jumpsuit, was the highlight of the evening, although her sassy approach to “Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered” and “Lush Life,” came close.