Tony Bennett, right, onstage Friday at the Hollywood Bowl as Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Gustavo Dudamel applauds. (Craig T. Mathew and Greg Grudt / Mathew Imaging)
Ageless at 90, Tony Bennett brings his eternal spring to Dudamel and the L.A. Phil
by Mark Swed
july 16, 2017
Ten summers after Tony Bennett made his Hollywood Bowl debut in 1962, the Los Angeles Philharmonic advertised an evening featuring him at the Bowl with the orchestra and its music director, Zubin Mehta. But as jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote in his Times review about the meeting of Bennett and Mehta: “If that summit ever took place, it was backstage over coffee.” Mehta opened the concert with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and then dashed to LAX for a flight to Israel, where he had another concert waiting. The pianist in Bennett’s combo cued the orchestra.
It wasn’t, in fact, until last Friday night, 55 years and a day to the date of the singer’s Bowl debut and not quite three weeks before his 91st birthday, that an actual summit between Bennett and an L.A. Phil music director finally took place.
Truth be told, this didn’t turn out to be much of a meeting. For his long set in the second half of the program, Bennett again had a jazz combo with which he closely collaborated. Gustavo Dudamel mostly looked on, the orchestra used in but a handful of barely noticeable backups, more there for optics than acoustics. Bennett never even bothered to acknowledge Dudamel’s presence until the last of his curtain calls; as people were heading for the exits, the two walked out on stage together.
Still, this was not a total bust for the conductor and orchestra. In an engaging, crowd-warming first half they played a pair of Verdi overtures (“La Forza del Destino” and “Nabucco”) with demonstrative verve, Henry Mancini movie tunes (“Charade” and “Moon River”) with graciousness and Mancini’s showy concert piece, “Strings on Fire!” with flair. After intermission, Dudamel did have an opportunity, however diminished, to further display his versatility, following the orchestra’s first week of the Bowl season with American ballet star Misty Copeland and legendary Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully.
read more at: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-tony-bennett-dudamel-bowl-review-20170717-story.html
