Pop quiz: is this a quartet contest score sheet, or a track list from a pop superstar famed for outrageous costuming and heavy dance beats?
- "Anything Goes" Cole Porter
- "Cheek to Cheek" Irving Berlin
- "Nature Boy" eden ahbez
- "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" Jimmy McHugh, Dorothy Fields
- "I Won't Dance" Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach
- "Firefly" Cy Coleman, Carolyn Leigh
- "Lush Life" Billy Strayhorn
- "Sophisticated Lady" Duke Ellington, Irving Mills, Mitchell Parish
- "Let's Face the Music and Dance" Irving Berlin
- "But Beautiful" Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke
- "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" Duke Ellington, Irving Mills
Could be both.
USA Today's review of "Cheek To Cheek" , a collaboration between Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, is fairly generous:
Listening to Lady Gaga sing American Songbook standards with Tony Bennett on Cheek to Cheek (* * * out of four) can be a bit like watching a pretty, eager young girl try to walk a red carpet alongside a veteran supermodel. The 28-year-old pop diva has impressive raw material — a supple, textured voice capable of evoking sensuality, tenderness and pain — and she and the 88-year-old Bennett enjoy a playful, sometimes poignant rapport.
Expect plenty of reviews from all sides of the spectrum. Meanwhile, what will you do with the improved recognition of these classics from the great American songbook?