:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/L5KT63FBJFAJ7GKR5NTUON5U5M.jpg)
The Great American Songbook doesn’t refer to a particular publication. It’s a catchall term for the music of Broadway shows, Hollywood musicals and the cabaret-friendly songs that streamed out of Tin Pan Alley, that strip of Manhattan where music publishers, song pluggers and aspiring artists combined to create a soundtrack for an optimistic young country.
Its leading songwriters? Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, George Gershwin. Many were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, hoping their sheet music would lift them to a better life.
Over the years, this genre has needed guardians. The rise of rock ’n’ roll delivered a punch to its belly. Electronic instrumentation was another blow. Although it once pulsed with the vitality of youth, it became known as the music of your parents.
One man above all others kept this music alive well into the 21st century, and his name was Tony Bennett. He died Friday in New York at the fine age of 96, and popular music had no more loyal friend. Chicagoans and especially people in the northern suburbs have particular reason to mourn his loss.
Bennett appeared an astonishing 40 times at the Ravinia Festival, the bucolic outdoor music venue in Highland Park. Any fan of this repertoire who lived in or around Chicago was likely to have found their way there, at least once or twice. Bennett’s concerts always sold out.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/PDZJOMYRUFCJDMNGCFC4WUA4WQ.JPG)
Bennett’s Ravinia appearances toward the end of summer were the most poignant, his signature voice offering a note of melancholy as Chicagoland families, often arrayed together on the lawn, bellies full, wine glasses empty and bodies wrapped in blankets, pondered the passage of another season as Bennett opened up his heart for them. The singer’s advancing age was, of course, an inherent part of the experience: Many of his fans were similarly amazed at how old they seemed to be becoming themselves, and they took solace in Bennett’s keeping on, keeping on.
Even as the world kept changing, and to many minds kept getting worse, Bennett was a constant. Crucially, he offered a measure of balm and restoration. He did not have Frank Sinatra’s abrasion or even Sammy Davis Jr.’s level of talent. But he was knowable, a singer who knew how to reflect his audience back at them. And to convey their aspirations for love, friendship and happiness as he did so.
This newspaper wrote about Bennett every time, and at other times too, as our longtime jazz critic Howard Reich was to some degree Bennett’s Boswell, writing story after story and review after review admiring and dissecting all Bennett had done for this kind of music and for the people of this city. Reich, like other music writers, often wrote about Bennett’s remarkable level of coolness as he aged: By working and recording with younger artists and by always taking his material seriously, he eventually seduced younger audiences and became as hip as a retro cocktail bar in Chicago’s West Loop. And he was a one-man force when it came to educating America on its own history of popular music. Now he is gone, the American Songbook has reason to worry.
[ Howard Reich review from 2017: Yes, Tony Bennett still sings grandly at 91 ]
There is one other very important thing about Bennett to note and to admire. He continued to perform despite the onset of dementia.
Chicago Tribune Opinion
For anyone who watched his late-in-life work with Lady Gaga, here was a remarkable example of someone who showed the world one of the oft-forgotten truths about a condition that afflicts so many Americans: People with advanced levels of dementia still can contribute a great deal, especially if it is something they have done for years.
Bennett struggled to remember names and faces, but when he started to sing, he went on a kind of autopilot, the familiar smile returning to his face and the notes and even the lyrics flowing like good wine. This was familiar to many people who knew dementia well: a reminder that the original person always is in there, communicating and loving just as at the times when it was far more obvious to those on the outside. In his courage, Bennett offered a great deal of comfort to those who best knew what he was facing.
Fortunately, Bennett managed to surround himself with kind family members and fellow artists who protected his reputation as they did his spirit.
Ravinia, of course, will continue without Bennett, and others are singing, and will sing, the songs that filled his shows. But it’s hard not to see Bennett as the last of his particular crew of entertainers who always showed up, always looked immaculate on stage, always put the audience first and who sure as heck knew how to sing a great old song.
Cheers from Chicago, Tony. And thanks.
Join the discussion on Twitter @chitribopinions and on Facebook.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.