Bublé & Bennett Specials

It was several evenings ago that we feasted on a one-hour Michael Bublé special and a two-hour celebration of Tony Bennett’s ninetieth birthday. Damn, what good music, what good singers. Bublé sounded just like the same wonderful modern-day Sinatra he’s sounded like for the past decade, and he looked like he’d lost some of that baby fat he was wearing a year or two ago. He seemed a little sleazy a few years ago, but on this special he seemed more contrite and likeable as a person. That may have been because his son Noah was diagnosed as having cancer of the liver. And, of course, he can still sing songs from the Great American Songbook better than almost any singer today. No, I mean better than any singer today.

The tribute to Bennett was maybe the best special of this and the past ten years. Even Kevin Spacey sounded surprisingly good. And Lady Gaga again showed how comfortable she is singing standards instead of the odd pop songs that made her a name for the last few years. She sang a sensual “La Vie En Rose” with a French accent that would have made Edith Piaf proud. I still hear what she did on a past Bennett special, singing “Lush Life” better than anyone else has ever done it. And then Leslie Odom jr. sang “Autumn Leaves” that made my hair stand up. Odom is one of the Hamilton stars, and I can now see why he’s a star. This was followed by Bob Dylan sort of making love to the microphone stand as he sang “Once Upon a Time.” I must be in a minority of one who doesn’t think he has a very good voice. And I’m still incensed by his winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. He looks weird, he sounds weird, he acts weird. So, where is the musical greatness everyone keeps awarding him? A great tribute to Tony, who just seems to go on and on. At the conclusion, he sang “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and hit high notes I didn’t think he still had in him. He’s testimony that numbers of birthdays don’t mean a thing. He’s ninety, but he looks and sings like he’s sixty. What a great show it was.