Conversations in low light: Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga take Radio City Music Hall

Before making my way to Manhattan that night, I couldn't help but feel odd about putting on a simple blue dress for a Gaga show. She's the only artist out there who can make total normalcy feel completely avant-garde. It was strange and exhilarating to stand outside of Radio City Music Hall and look out into a sea of people I'm used to seeing in leather and fishnets decked out in their finery. It was on the night of June 20th that my contemporary love affair with a pop star who knows no limits collided with the buzzing jazz-radio memories that live in my grandmother's kitchen.

The iconic venue met one of its most diverse crowds to date, with teal-haired Little Monsters swaying alongside the wiser crowd, who made soundtracks to entire lives with the Great American Songbook. Neither side knew what to make of the antitheses next to them, but just as Tony and Gaga proved the second the needle fell on Cheek to Cheek, this music is ageless. If you closed your eyes that night, not a single soul was separated by decades or difference.

The fact of the matter is that we all left that show knowing more than we did upon arrival — about music, about craft, and about what it takes to bring down a house with only talent to fall back on. With the lilting but powerful encouragement of Tony's time-tested ability, we little ones got to peer inside a time capsule of music history — a moment in history before charts and trends and sales dictated what was worthy. The more seasoned set, on the other hand, witnessed an addition to that capsule in the form of a contemporary music anomaly, who will withstand the test of time and be there when the next generation is given an opportunity to look inside. It will wait there unopened until the industry is ready to have these conversations again.

In fact, the entire evening was a conversation of sorts. The theater hummed with the promise of exchange. Tony and Gaga shared the spotlight when two voices were better than one, and split it when one of them needed to punctuate the conversation with a stunning monologue. The two-hour set — absolutely prolific in its reach — read like the delicate passing of musical torches. 

None of us were worried about Gaga's graces, but the relief felt by Tony's lifelong fans was palpable when they realized that she admired the jazz powerhouse just as much as they did. Without hesitation, Gaga stepped out of the spotlight to let this living legend work his magic. His part of the conversation was a mingling of words and music so fluid that it was hard to determine where one stopped and the other started. One second, he was explaining to the audience how excited he was to perform the standards, and the next, he was telling you to "Sing, You Sinners." His disciplined rendition of "Smile" made everyone in the room — whether 18 or 80 — do exactly that. He rounded out his story with a tribute to the man he called his "very best friend in the world: Mr. Frank Sinatra." It felt surreal to witness his retelling of such quintessentially American stories. I didn't realize just how familiar they'd feel until Tony Bennett filled the whole room with them. 

When Gaga's solo moments rolled around, she floated across the stage in a haze of feathers and jewels with a velvet voice to match. As someone who has spent the last six years travelling the world to watch her perform, I can now tell you that when our Gaga steps out as Lady, something magical happens. Her pop anthems are experimental in themselves, but when she sings jazz, she improvises with every word of every line of every track. There was no plan, no set tempo, no steadfast method. What I witnessed was the powerful conversation that shifts without warning between a jazz artist and the musicians accompanying her. She let the songs take her where they would, with an overall performance that culminated into something immense and inimitable. Her latest iteration of "Lush Life" was softer and more introspective than the album version, giving Billy Strayhorn's story a heartbroken narrator of a different kind. The highlight of Gaga's solo endeavors was a rendition of "La Vie En Rose" so intense you could feel it bouncing off the walls and back again. 

The most powerful conversation happening that night, however, was the effortless exchange between a 29-year-old pop phenomenon and an 88-year-old monument to American music as we know it. With cheeky, ad-libbed versions of "Anything Goes" and "They All Laughed," Tony and Gaga shared a secret conversation of their own that we were just lucky enough to sit in on. When they crossed the stage together, it was as if we needn't even be there. I'm sure they liked performing for us and all, but I got the distinct vibe that these two kids would be just as content belting out "Firefly" together in a low-lit jazz bar as they were doing it in one of New York City's finest venues. And that's when you know you've found the good stuff. 

by Madeline Distasio
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