Recorded on June 9, 1962, one week before the release of the
I Left My Heart in San Francisco album that would catapult
Tony Bennett's career into the stratosphere, this concert album effectively sums up his accomplishments so far. Some of the hits --
"Stranger in Paradise," "Rags to Riches," "Because of You" -- are still on the set list (although drastically rearranged), but clearly he has found his true repertoire in reinventions of older material like
"All the Things You Are" (the version here is exquisite) and good choices of new songs -- he champions the team of
Cy Coleman and
Carolyn Leigh, and introduces
"San Francisco," which some in the audience already know. (Released as a single in advance of the
San Francisco album, it was in the charts already.) And on the album's original four LP sides,
Bennett managed to find time for such experiments as an up-tempo
"Ol' Man River" featuring percussionist
Candido, a throwback to his innovative
Beat of My Heart album. More than his greatest-hits collections of the '50s and early '60s, it gives a broad sense of
Bennett's work, and it does so in the format with which he's most comfortable -- live in concert. ~ William Ruhlmann
