Jazz, soul & blues
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett (1926-2023) was one of the last great American crooners, immortal interpreter of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and champion of the golden age of song. His story with Montreux peaked in 2015, on the stage of the Auditorium Stravinski, alongside Lady Gaga.
Tony Bennett in Montreux
“Cheek to Cheek” with Lady Gaga
On 6 July 2015, Tony Bennett, weeks short of his 89th birthday, shared the stage of the Auditorium Stravinski with Lady Gaga. It was Quincy Jones who introduced the duo, drawn from their album “Cheek to Cheek”. Nearly thirty songs by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and Irving Berlin, before a packed house: the meeting of two generations around the great American songbook.
A regular, and a legend
That spectacular duo was not Tony Bennett’s first visit to Montreux. As early as 11 July 2012 he sang there, photographed backstage alongside Claude Nobs and pianist Herbie Hancock: at over eighty-five, the crooner remained one of the festival’s most cherished guests.
A painter under the name Anthony Benedetto, a marcher beside Martin Luther King at Selma in 1965, Tony Bennett spanned the whole twentieth century of American song. Frank Sinatra saw in him “the best singer in the business”. He died in July 2023, aged ninety-six.