Tony Bennett emerged as a pop singer from the end pages of the era that produced the Great American Songbook. Growing up in the 1940s, he loved the craft of the songwriters and the melodic inventiveness of jazz. Pianist Bill Evans emerged a bit later as an important figure in the jazz world for his work with Miles Davis and his own groups.
Collaboration between them wasn't inevitable, but the results-when they finally met-were top drawer. Bennett and Evans recorded a pair of albums together in the mid-'70s, reissued here along with a second disc of outtakes that sound just fine. With voice and piano coaxing each other through a set of standards (Mancini, Bernstein, Rodgers & Hart), the recordings suggest the ultimate session at the swankiest lounge in the world, starring players at the top of their games for finding shades of nuance and emotion in every line of lyric and music.
