Lady Gaga Is A Natural Jazz Singer, Tony Bennett Says
When one thinks of Lady Gaga, jazz is not necessarily the music genre that comes into mind. The fact that she's doing a jazz album with Tony Bennett is bizarre for some, and Lady Gaga herself knows this.
Lady Gaga shares that when people hear that Tony Bennett wants to do a jazz album with her, the normal reaction would be incredulity. She is though, no matter the disbelief. She and Tony Bennett are working on a new collaborative album called, "Cheek to Cheek." This is not the first time they even collaborated. They also worked on "The Lady Is A Tramp" on the legendary crooner's album, "Duets II." The song even won a Grammy.
Bennett is all praises for Lady Gaga, however, and claims that the pop icon can certainly do the full album with him.
"She's actually a very authentic jazz singer," he says. "She'll turn a phrase, she'll make it different, because of the moment that she's singing. And so, what happens is it keeps the songs alive; the interpretations become very intimate and everlasting."
Her over-the-top shows certainly make it hard to imagine that she's going to be good in jazz. However, the reality is that Lady Gaga has been singing jazz since she was a kid. This probably made her decision to record with Tony Bennett much easier. Gaga herself shared the project itself makes her happy because it brings out the natural in her. With all the noise surrounding her career, she actually missed doing something subtler.
"He's brought out a subtlety in me that I've missed for a while, because my life is very noisy," Gaga shares. "It's a lot harder to sing with auto-tune, in a way, you know? It's a lot harder to sing with rigid electronic music and lots of spectacle. It can be very difficult, because it's not always extremely natural."
New Yorker pop-music critic Sasha Frere-Jones concurs. She shares that the new jazz album is actually good, providing the fans with the chance to actually hear Lady Gaga sans all the noise that has been associated to her previous pop records. The Guardian even calls Gaga a "wonder," and said she should do more of jazz.