One broken marriage, a career kick-started and controlled, for more than a decade, by mobster Ray Muscarella, and a drugs habit that nearly killed him - there are many hidden layers to the success story of Tony Bennett. Take, for example, his latest album, Bennett Sings Ellington, which the septuagenarian proudly boasts "just got me my ninth Grammy award in six years." It's probably Anthony Dominick Benedetto's best album and no doubt deserves such awards, but Bennett also owes what he describes as "a great personal debt" to Duke Ellington.
Flashback to 1965 when, according to the singer's recently published biography, The Good Life (which he co-wrote with Will Friedwald), his career was on a high, but his private life was far from good. It was, in fact, at its lowest point ever. He and his wife, Patricia, a fan whom Tony met and married in the 1950s, and left for another woman less than a decade later, "were split up", he spent Christmas "in a lonely room" in a New York hotel separated from his sons which, he says, was devastating. Suddenly, he heard music coming from the hallway, opened the door and a choir was singing On a Clear Day You can See Forever. Ellington, performing a concert of religious music nearby, had heard Bennett was "in a bad way" and sent the choir to cheer him up. So is this album, in part, Bennett's way of repaying that debt?
"That moment changed my life," he responds. "Because it showed me people do care. But this album really is more than a belated thank you to Duke Ellington. We were great friends. My family and his were very close. So he knew I was grateful for what he'd done. Yet I did this album because I'm also convinced Duke and George Gershwin, will go down in history as America's two greatest American composers. I also happen to adore Duke's music. Tunes like Mood Indigo and Do Nothing till you Hear from Me.
"Of course I know no one does them better than Duke's orchestra, with guys like Johnny Hodges and Cootie Williams who were so individualistic that those overall recordings were also one of a kind, but what we can do is put our own stamp on the songs, eulogise these wonderful compositions Duke did." Bennett had told me this Ellington release would be a double CD: one swing, the other love songs. Explaining its single status, he articulates the kind of aesthetic that would please the minimalist piano-playing Duke Ellington and, in the process, name-drops another of his own musical heroes.
"I got great advice, years ago, from the master, Fred Astaire. He said: `When you have something and you think it's absolutely perfect, just yank out 15 minutes and this tightens everything up, makes for a better performance.' That's what we did with this record. But the extra tracks we recorded will turn up on other albums."
The "we" is Bennett and his son, Danny, who co-produced the album. Not only that: Danny Bennett is his dad's manager and has seen to it that the Benedettos "totally" control the man's music. Meaning Tony Bennett doesn't work on a royalty basis with Columbia Records - they "just distribute" his albums, in a deal which has finally turned the singer into a multi-millionaire. It's a long way from 1948, when Tony was so desperate to get a break in the music business that he turned to a local heavy for help, and received an offer he couldn't refuse. Namely, that his manager, Raymond G. Muscarella, "owned" Bennett, in return for getting the singer his first real publicity shots and gigs at mob-connected clubs such as the Shangri-La, in Tony's hometown of Astoria, New York. Another "connection", Charlie Cooley, who was on Bob Hope's payroll, persuaded the comedian to give Bennett a support slot at New York's legendary Paramount Theatre, which was when his career finally took flight.
Even so, Bennett's decision to work for Muscarella and, by extension, the mob, also led to a fight with his friend, Jack Wilson who, on hearing the news, slapped Bennett across the face.
"That is how strongly Jack felt about all that. He wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting into. But the mob did own all the night-clubs at the time. And ruled the jukebox business and then started up record companies to make records for those jukeboxes and signed up singers to make records, so they controlled it all."
Some record labels were completely underworld, Bennett explains, and Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker and Count Basie "never got a cent of their royalties, despite their popularity". One famous jazz label was known among musicians as the "junkie's label", because if, for example, Charlie Parker needed heroin, he'd get it in return for a recording and for signing away all rights to future payment or royalties. "But then, that happened in jazz, pop, rock, everywhere," notes Bennett.
And Bennett's ties to the mob? Severed around 1962, he says, when he decided: "enough, I can't pay any more dues than that." There are, of course, those who would argue that you never break away. A forthcoming movie on the life of Bobby Darin apparently suggests he was murdered by the mob. All Bennett says to all this is, "they're businessmen and if you break away from their income, it gets dangerous". In the recent Mafia-parody movie, Analyse This, Bennett plays a singer ordered by thug Robert De Niro to "perform" for the movie's protagonist, Billy Crystal. A scene, and part, Bennett says he played "purely for laughs".
Bennett rejects the suggestion that he was never part of Sinatra's "scene" because Ol' Blue Eyes disapproved of drugs. "I never was part of the Rat Pack because I've always been a loner. Yet Sinatra was my best friend and he did more to help my career than anybody. Right to the day he died, he was rooting for me."
Bennett's 1970s drug habit began indulge at that point, when "cocaine flowed as freely as champagne". At first, it seemed like a "hip thing to do" he says, but "compounded with my pot smoking, the whole thing started sneaking up on me." Furthermore, feeling "under even more pressure" as a result of an IRS investigation into his finances, Bennett "in frustration, overindulged" one night, and almost died from an overdose. In a bath.
In his biography, he details a near-death experience, claiming he was enveloped in "a golden light" until being "jolted out of that vision" by his partner at the time, Sandra, who "pounded on my chest and literally brought me back to life". He still insists she saved his life.
"But it's not that I felt I went over to the other side. I was definitely there," he remembers. "Yet that was a wake-up call in many ways, though I also really did have to find myself at that point. And as I was rushed to the hospital, the only thought on my mind was something an ex-manager told me about Lenny Bruce, after he died from an overdose: `That man sinned against his talent'. That hit home. I realised I was throwing it all away and I became determined to clean up my act."
A year or so later, the death of Bennett's sometime collaborator, and buddy, pianist Bill Evans - from a drugs overdose - influenced the singer to take another hard look at his drug use and draw back. Indeed, both these experiences probably formed the kind of artistic wake-up call that, ultimately, has led to Bennett's nine Grammy awards and albums such as Bennett Sings Ellington. "I say it in my biography and this is exactly what happened," he remembers. "The last time I talked to Bill he did sound full of despair. He said `I want to tell you one thing: just think truth and beauty. Forget about everything else. Just concentrate on truth and beauty. That's all.' And I have tried to live by those words ever since."
Bennett Sings Ellington is available on Sony Records
