This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Tony Bennett would seem to have seen it all, done it all and sung it all in his half-century recording career. But his latest disc The Art of Romance is nothing short of a milestone for the consummate crooner: It marks his debut as a lyricist.
Putting pen to paper for the first time, the 78-year-old Bennett transforms Django Reinhardt’s gypsy-jazz chestnut Nuages into the velvety declaration All For You — and while his couplets aren’t going to bump Johnny Mercer off the musical map, it’s not bad work for a newbie.
Speaking of Johnny, Art of Romance also has another first: The debut of the jazzy Time to Smile, a long-lost Mercer composition that only surfaced earlier this year. After that, the rest of this set is pretty much what you’d expect — a dozen slices of Bennett’s silky smooth saloon-singer sophistication, set to a slate of small-combo swing and sweet string-section seduction.
All told, it may not be his most adventurous outing. But whether he’s offering something new or something old, it’s impossible not to fall under Bennett’s spell.
