Leaving a unique impression

JOHN FLEMING. St. Petersburg Times. St. Petersburg, FL - Feb 3, 2005
Copyright Times Publishing Co. Feb 3, 2005

In many ways, Tony Bennett follows Frank Sinatra in the American singers pantheon, so it's fitting that American Stage is following up its Sinatra revue from last summer, My Way, with a similar one devoted to Bennett, I Left My Heart.

But the musical styles of Bennett and Sinatra are very different, and that gave pause to Todd Olson, co-creator with David Grapes of My Way, which has been a big success at regional theaters, with more than 200 productions. Olson, artistic director of American Stage, initially resisted applying the same treatment to Bennett.

"My feeling was that there was not a story," he said. "But I got a lot of Bennett CDs, and it dawned on me that the music is the story. The more I listened and did research, the more I thought this had the potential to be musically far superior to My Way."

I Left My Heart, with a cast of three tenors and a four-piece combo, features more than 35 pop standards that Bennett has performed, from Steppin Out with My Baby to I Left My Heart in San Francisco. Olson directed the premiere, which opens tonight at the Palladium Theater.

Bennett's career does not supply the kind of pop cultural narrative that Sinatra's does, and that influenced Olson's approach to crafting the revue's script. "There's less of a myth to unwind than there was with Sinatra," he said. "That allows a lot more long expressions of music. Sinatra was a personality who sang, compared to Bennett, who really is a consummate musician."

Vince di Mura, the show's pianist and music director, did arrangements for My Way and I Left My Heart. He learned different things from the projects. "Listening to Sinatra I learn a lot about what it is to create a piece of performed music," di Mura said. "But from Bennett, I've learned about what music really is. That's what I think is so radically different. There's nothing to hide behind, there's nothing gratuitous, and there's absolutely nothing that isn't completely honest in a Bennett performance."

Sinatra's recordings featured legendary arrangements for the singer and orchestra by the likes of Gordon Jenkins and Nelson Riddle. Bennett's arrangements were not so high-powered.

"Not to disparage Sinatra, but when you have the kind of arrangers he had, you have an incredible advantage as an interpreter," di Mura said. "Bennett went out there sometimes with nothing more than the piano, bass and drums, and it became about what the musical structure was itself. For me, in some ways, that is more interesting."

Di Mura was especially taken by Bennett's two albums with pianist Bill Evans in the 1970s. "Those recordings are impressive, especially with Bill's harmonic coloring," he said. "That gave me the freedom to start messing around with the arrangements, to bring that kind of harmonic color to the piano."

Two songs in the show, You Must Believe in Spring and A Child Is Born, are from the second Bennett-Evans album. In the end, the main difference between Sinatra and Bennett may be that Bennett is more of a jazz singer. "This is a jazz score," di Mura said. "I didn't write out every note. There's a lot of riffing, a lot of improvisation."

Keith Buterbaugh is the only singer in the Bennett revue to have also been in a production of My Way. "The Bennett stuff has a certain ease when you're singing it," Buterbaugh said. "There's a natural delivery to it. Whereas with the Sinatra, it was always against that great big band sound. I'm getting more text than I did with Sinatra. I'm finding a different kind of truth with the Bennett material, a much more vulnerable truth to the lyric."

The other cast members - Michael Buchanan and Rashad Naylor - are in their mid 20s and became acquainted with Bennett through his "unplugged" concert on MTV in 1994. "It got people thinking in a different way about what musicality is," Buchanan said. "It was very inspiring in that way."

Bennett turns 79 in August, and he's still going strong. He will give a concert Feb. 25 at Ruth Eckerd Hall. He doesn't have any connection with I Left My Heart, but Olson thinks he would approve.

"I feel like to do an event like this properly, you sort of fall in love with the person. I think if Bennett saw this, he would be very proud of it."