Tony Bennett Wonderful World Super-Audio CD

Personnel: Tony Bennet, K.D. Lang (vocals); Gray Sargent (guitar); Lee Musiker (piano); Paul Langosch (bass); Clayton Cameron (drums).
A WONDERFUL WORLD won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. "La Vie En Rose" was nominated for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals.
This is a multi-channel Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players.
Personnel: Tony Bennet, K.D. Lang (vocals); Gray Sargent (guitar); Lee Musiker (piano); Paul Langosch (bass); Clayton Cameron (drums).
A WONDERFUL WORLD won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. "La Vie En Rose" was nominated for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals.
This is a Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players.
Tony Bennett has sung with k.d. lang previously, notably on his MTV Unplugged album, and the two have meshed well together, largely because of lang's willingness to sublimate herself to Bennett's approach. The same thing can be said of the two on this full-length duet album (which also contains solos -- Bennett is heard alone on "That's My Dream," lang on "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" and "That Lucky Old Sun [Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day]"). It isn't just that lang joins in on material more suitable to Bennett's style than to hers. This is an album on which the musicians are the members of Bennett's backup group (plus strings), recorded in Bennett's studio. But one never gets the sense that lang is restricted by the approach. She is sufficiently versatile, or chameleon-like, to sound like she's enjoying herself, just as she did earlier in her career when she was working with producer Owen Bradley in Nashville and singing traditional country. At 76, Bennett sings with an easy, casual style, never seeming to work very hard for his effects, and lang, in her vocal prime, deliberately complements him, though she never seems quite as comfortable. Although there is no indication other than an uncredited painting (by Bennett, of course) inside the CD booklet, this is a tribute album to Louis Armstrong, who recorded these songs over the course of his long career. That doesn't mean that there's a trumpet to be heard anywhere on the disc or that either of the singers tries to re-create any aspect of Armstrong's vocal style. It simply provides an organizing principle that the listener can notice or not. (Well, it's hard not to notice during the title song, with Bennett's references to "Satchmo" and "Pops.") Like Armstrong, Bennett and lang are trying to make the music sound effortless and unstudied, and to a large extent they succeed. ~ William Ruhlmann
After numerous live performances and the occasional one-off recording together, legendary balladeer Tony Bennett and contemporary pop siren k.d. lang felt the call to make an entire album together. The fruits of that decision, as heard on A WONDERFUL WORLD, showcase the way in which the pair's styles, ostensibly polar opposites of honeyed sweetness and rough-hewn world-wisdom, complement each other perfectly. Listen to the way the duo's voices intertwine over the light Latin-inflected rhythm of "La Vie En Rose," the soft-and-easy swing of "Dream a Little Dream of Me," or the elegantly orchestrated closer "If We Never Meet Again" (to name but a few high points). That's the sound of two true artistes finding a common point from which each can enhance the other's artistry, a rare thing in any medium.
After numerous live performances and the occasional one-off recording together, legendary balladeer Tony Bennett and contemporary pop siren k.d. lang felt the call to make an entire album together. The fruits of that decision, as heard on A WONDERFUL WORLD, showcase the way in which the pair's styles, ostensibly polar opposites of honeyed sweetness and rough-hewn world-wisdom, complement each other perfectly. Listen to the way the duo's voices intertwine over the light Latin-inflected rhythm of "La Vie En Rose," the soft-and-easy swing of "Dream a Little Dream o