Review from Financial Times 4/5 stars

[Katie14 4,828]

 

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, Royal Albert Hall, London — review

Ludovic Hunter-Tilney

The odd-couple pairing between the elderly man of 88 whom Frank Sinatra described as “the best singer in the business” and the young woman of 29 who once described herself as “the queen of the universe” isn’t as odd as it seems.

Both Anthony Benedetto and Stefani Germanotta are Italian-Americans from New York. If you scrunched up your eyes at the Royal Albert Hall — so that you couldn’t make out that Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga, was wearing a see-through scarlet dress with big knickers and burlesque nipple pasties — you might have been watching nonno and granddaughter singing together at a lavish family gathering.

 

Gaga’s translucent dress plus feathery stole, the most outré of her multiple costume changes, appeared for a brassy version of the 1928 standard “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby”, a big-band track from her and Bennett’s duets album Cheek to Cheek. The style couldn’t have been further from the ill-disciplined dance-pop of her usual music. But at the Albert Hall, in the pair’s first joint UK concert, a charity gala for WellChild, Gaga more than held her own with the last of the great crooners.

The twosome sang together and separately in a two-hour, 32-song set. Bennett was backed by his touring band for his solo numbers, while Gaga had her own musicians for hers. An orchestra also accompanied them.

Bennett, who performs on autopilot these days, cannibalised the routines and patter of his live show for his solo segments. But the ovation he received at the end of “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” wasn’t merely sentimental. His voice was in extraordinarily good shape, luxuriously smooth in timbre, with deceptively casual phrasing and subtle changes in emphasis.

The duets were diverting, bookended by “Anything Goes” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”, although the pair tended to sing alongside one another rather than as a dialogue. Gaga belted ’em out merrily but could twinkle-toe around the higher notes too. Her solo spots stole the show.

“Men are not a new sensation,” she sang in the Broadway showtune “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”, punctuating the line with a wild trill of laughter and a sotto voce ad lib, “So unprofessional”, while eyeing up the Hammond organ player with a man-eater’s glare. On stage in the past she has come across as a stellar performer in need of decent songs. With the help of an ancestral elder, Tony Bennett, she has found them in the Great American Songbook.

4/5 Stars

I thought this was a good review. Its so unnecessary to shade Gaga's music though.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/892eb5d2-0e93-11e5-8aca-00144feabdc0.html

[JustPokeHerFace 2,564]

That's the only bad thing about the C2C era, her post-Jazz music could be seen as gimmicky compared to this. 

But if she goes the more organic pop route (i.e. Adele), then she can have pop success and this type of acclaim and respect. 

[GawdGa 1,399]

i hate when people compare her jazz era to past eras

[lego 44,165]

so that you couldn’t make out that Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga, was wearing a see-through scarlet dress with big knickers and burlesque nipple pasties — you might have been watching nonno and granddaughter singing together at a lavish family gathering.

 

Gaga replace the damn red dress.  

[Jester 6,365]

I don't like it even though they acknowledged her flawless and powerful vocals

[monsterdreams 1,529]

Can't help but love slay to slay 

[Better Day 5,766]

Why does the Tory papers love JazzGa so much? 

[CannaeDrive 3,412]

That's a good review and I have no problem with them saying that Gaga is "a stellar performer in need of decent songs". Even though her own songs are good, the pop/dance genre can be limiting/basic (it's primarily a commercial product) and in Gaga's case, not enough to her wide range of talent to thrive and expand. Her creativity and talent deserve more than one limiting music style.

[MonsterOfSpain 8,318]

Nice review but they really didn't have to shade her pop music

[Blackwillow 2,200]