Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday August 15, 2023: Remembering Tony Bennett

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

This episode of Stranger Songs was recorded and can already be streamed on-demand by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/61550.html

Theme: Remembering Tony Bennett (1926-2023).

Tony Bennett (photo: Mark Seliger)

Tony Bennett, the great jazz and pop singer, died on July 21, less than two weeks before his 97th birthday. All the songs on this show were part of Bennett’s repertoire.

Tony Bennett- Let’s Begin

The Beat of My Heart (Columbia)

Peggy Lee- I Left My Heart in San Francisco

I’m a Woman: Expanded Edition (Capitol)

Willie Nelson- Let’s Face the Music and Dance

Let’s the Face the Music and Dance (Legacy)

Diana Krall- East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)

When I Look in Your Eyes (Verve)

Tony Bennett & Bonnie Raitt- I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues

Playin’ with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues (RPM/Columbia)

Tony Bennett & The Count Basie Orchestra- Anything Goes

Count Basie Swings/Tony Bennett Sings (Roulette)

Mariane Faithfull- Boulevard of Broken Dreams

20th Century Blues (RCA)

David Clayton-Thomas- When I Fall in Love

Combo (Antionette)

Tony Bennett- Just One of Those Things

Love for Sale (Columbia/Interscope)

Susie Arioli Swing Band featuring Jordan Officer- Pennies from Heaven

Pennies from Heaven (Justin Time)

Jackie Washington, Ken Whiteley & Mose Scarlett- A Little Street Where Old Friends Meet

Where Old Friends Meet (Pyramid)

Holly Cole- Whatever Lola Wants

Montreal (Universal)

Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga- Love for Sale

Love for Sale (Columbia/Interscope)

Tony Bennett & Amy Winehouse- Body and Soul

Duets II (Columbia)

Missy Burgess- Smile

Play Me Sweet (Missy Burgess)

Chaim Tannenbaum- It’s Only a Paper Moon

Chaim Tannenbaum (StorySound)

Sophie Milman- I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby

Sophie Milman (Linus)

Dave Van Ronk- As Time Goes By

Sweet & Lowdown (Justin Time)

Tony Bennett- Play It Again, Sam

I’ve Gotta Be Me (Columbia)

Tony Bennett- Blues in the Night

Playin’ with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues (RPM/Columbia)

Catherine Russell- I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart

Bring It Back (Jazz Village)

Steve Howell, Dan Sumner & Jason Weinheimer- Do Nothing ‘til You Hear From Me

Long Ago (Out of the Past)

Tony Bennett & K.D. Lang- Keep the Faith Baby

Playin’ with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues (RPM/Columbia)

Tony Bennett & The Count Basie Orchestra- Are You Having Any Fun

Strike Up the Band (Roulette)

Next week: Remembering Robbie Robertson (1943-2023). 

--Mike Regenstreif

Mason Daring and Jeanie Stahl – Forty

MASON DARING AND JEANIE STAHL

Forty

Daring Records

daringandstahl.com

“What a surprise, that after a few decades, we would record another album,” write Mason Daring and Jeanie Stahl in the liner notes to Forty, an album that celebrates the four decades since they first worked together as a duo – and their first new recordings as a duo in well over three decades,

And how nice it is to hear this new music from old friends. Back in the late-1970s, I operated an independent booking agency for a few years and Mason and Jeanie were among the artists I worked with. They were among the top performers in the bustling New England folk scene back then and I started working with them on the strength of a great LP called Sweet Melodies in the Night that included several classics like Mason’s “Marblehead Morning,” Jeanie’s beautiful title song and definitive interpretations of songs by Bill Staines and Robin Batteau. During the time I worked with them they recorded a second great LP called Heartbreak. Years later, many of the songs from those LPs were collected on a CD called The Early Years, and now, decades after that, we have Forty.

By the time I wound down my agency, Mason was heavily into scoring films – notably for director John Sayles – and Jeanie went on to record several solo albums. While both have pursued other primary interests over the past three decades-plus, they have continued to get together to perform on occasion.

All this time later, Mason and Jeanie still sound great together on Forty’s 10 songs – half of them originals, half of them classics drawn from contemporary folk music, country, western swing and the Great American Songbook. Jeanie’s voice remains exquisite while Mason’s glides effortlessly on pieces like Roger Miller’s “King of the Road.”

There’s a timelessness to the songs on the album and originals like Mason’s “Too Much” and Jeanie’s “The Ring” stand tall next to the classics.

And while Forty is a delightful listen from start to finish, I’ll pick out a few of my very favorite tracks.

“The Ring,” is a lovely song which uses the metaphor of a 40-year-old ring in a jewel box for the seemingly quick passage of time that those of us of a certain age can now look back on. It also captures that passage of time celebrated with this album.

“It’s Funny,” written and sung by Mason, is a cool, love comes-love goes tune that would have been at home on a Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett LP, while their versions of “San Antonio Rose” and Chattanooga Choo Choo,” – both of which I’m sure I remember Mason and Jeanie playing live back in the day – are full of playful swing.

Perhaps my favorite track, though, is Jeanie’s sublime interpretation of “Across the Great Divide,” a beautiful song written by my late friend Kate Wolf. Perfection.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Bob Dylan – Shadows in the Night

BOB DYLAN

Shadows in the Night

Columbia

bobdylan.com

I was skeptical last year when the news surfaced that Bob Dylan was recording an album of songs associated with Frank Sinatra. But listening and re-listening to Shadows in the Night over the past few days, I was captivated by Dylan’s 10-song, 35-minute excursion into the Great American Songbook.

Although each of these songs may have been sung by Sinatra at one point – and he’s listed as a co-writer on “I’m a Fool to Want You,” the opening number – and although the album title, Shadows in the Night, may be an allusion to “Strangers in the Night,” a Sinatra hit of the mid-1960s, I really don’t hear the album as a Sinatra tribute.

For one thing, Dylan does none of Sinatra’s major hits. There are no versions of “Strangers in the Night,” “New York, New York,” “It was a Very Good Year,” “One for My Baby,” “My Way,” etc. on this album. I looked through my own (limited) collection of Sinatra albums and not one of these songs is there. So while I am familiar with some of them from versions by other artists as disparate as Louis Armstrong and Rufus Wainwright – I recall 20-year-old Rufus singing a beautiful rendition of Irving Berlin’s “What’ll I Do” at his maternal grandmother’s funeral in 1994 – I do not have previous Sinatra associations with any of these songs.

For another, Dylan does not attempt to sound like Sinatra – how could he possibly? – and the arrangements, played by Dylan’s touring band with some occasional muted horns added to some songs, sound nothing like Sinatra’s typical big band or orchestral settings. There isn’t even a piano player on the album.

The Sinatra allusion aside, Shadows in the Night is a great title for a deeply intimate album that really should be listened to late at night. The songs are mature reflections sung quietly in Dylan’s ragged, yet compelling voice. He makes these songs his own in ways that are very different from how Sinatra – or other voices like Tony Bennett or Ella Fitzgerald – might have approached them.

The key song, for me anyway, is “Why Try to Change Me Now?” one of the more obscure songs I’d never heard before. Written by Joseph McCarthy Jr. and Cy Coleman, it’s lyrics could credibly have been written by Dylan about himself. “So, let people wonder, let ‘em laugh, let ‘em frown/You know I’ll love you till the moon’s upside down/Don’t you remember I was always your clown?/Why try to change me now?” he sings on top of a quietly lovely guitar-and-pedal-steel-based arrangement.

Among my other favorites are the weary-voiced renditions of “Autumn Leaves” and “That Lucky Old Sun,” both songs I’ve heard by many other artists, and Berlin’s “What I’ll Do,” a beautiful, lonely song.

Many of these are songs of regret – regrets borne of maturity and experience – and Dylan’s voice, ragged from the decades but somehow sweeter than it’s ever been, and as compelling as it’s ever been, draws me deeply into the songs. And I love the way he’s re-imagined the songs for subdued, arrangements built around guitars, pedal steel and bass.

This is not an album that Dylan – who revolutionized the art of songwriting in the 1960s when he was in his 20s – could have made back then. But it is something I’m glad he surprised us with in his 70s.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Claudia Schmidt -- Promising Sky

CLAUDIA SCHMIDT & HER FUNTET
Promising Sky
Claudia Schmidt
claudiaschmidt.com

I first heard Claudia Schmidt more than 30 years ago. She struck me, back in the late-‘70s, as one of those people who is just inherently musical as she’d move, seemingly effortlessly from a Michael Smith song, to a blues standard, to a traditional ballad sung a cappella. Listening to her records over the years – it’s probably 20 years or so since I’ve seen her live – I’ve not changed my mind about that musicality.

Although she came out of the folk scene, and has kept one of her feet firmly planted there, in recent years Claudia has simultaneously devoted herself to jazz. Several of the CDs that she’s released recently have been fine jazz efforts while others have remained in the folk vein.

Promising Sky, Claudia’s new album, blends her folk and jazz influences and adds some blues and world music spicing in a fine collection of mostly-original material.

Among the highlights is “Wisconsin Country,” a haunting song that has Claudia’s ethereal vocals supported by the bowed bass of Jack Dryden and flute of Nancy Stagnitta, as she describes an autumnal journey through the countryside and into herself. Another is “If All Goes Well,” a jazzy tune about the resiliency of the human spirit. I also really like her version of “We’ll Be Together Again,” a standard familiar from the vocal-piano duets of Tony Bennett and Bill Evans. This version features Claudia’s voice and 12-string guitar receiving some quietly-soulful support from mandolinist Don Julin, bassist Dryden and drummer Randy Marsh.

I have to say, though, that my absolute favourite song on the CD is the title track. Sung a cappella with harmonies from Seth Bernard, May Erlewine and Rachael Davis, “Promising Sky” is a bright, gorgeous, hope-filled song inspired by the choral tradition of South Africa.

--Mike Regenstreif