Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
A singer praised for his warm, inviting voice and called the best in the business by Fraxinata.
On the island
Eight records
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra
To this day was the best performance that was ever given at any jazz festival. Joe Jones, Count Basie's drummer, played in the wings, not visible to the audience. He rolled up a piece of newspaper and just played time on his knee and swung the whole Duke Ellington band. It was amazing because uh the band took on a flair that uh uh no one's ever heard anything swing as much uh since.
I always think when I hear Ella singing like that that if I were another woman singer, I wouldn't be so much inspired by that as I go and shoot myself. I know what you're saying. I mean it's perfect, isn't it?
Don't Blame MeFavourite
When it comes to uh jazz and popular music, the one man who's way up on his shelf and separate and away from everybody else and incomparable is Artatum and his wonderful recording of Don't Blame Me.
So we all fell in love with Maurice Ravel, and here's his uh string quartet and F.
Okay, let's have who I consider the best singer of the century, the finest, because of her training and that wonderful era where they really stroked and groomed an artist.
His composition of Waltz for Debbie always moved me very much and I'd love to have your audience hear that.
This song that he recorded, Jimmy Van Heusen's song. Deep in the Dream is kind of what I've been talking about.
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein
Well, I think he's uh, and always will be light years ahead of any musical genius that's ever hit the planet. I never heard anyone that knew more about music than this. He's just way ahead of time.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:11What part of New York do you live in?
right now I live right in the heart of New York City, which is Sixty Eighth Street on the east side
Presenter asks
0:21Were times hard as a child?
[times were] ghetto type surroundings
Presenter asks
2:42Who influenced you most as a young singer? Was there any particular artist?
Art Tatum … His phrasing … his whole concept of uh how to treat a popular song.
Presenter asks
2:53When you left the American Theatre Wing, what was the first singing job you had?
Pearl Bailey hired me. It was with a show that she had in Greenwich Village … it was the first real what I would call a big time job.
The keepsakes
Presenter asks
3:44What was the next important thing to happen after that Bob Hope tour?
I'd signed up uh with Columbia Records and got very lucky because the first recording started selling right away … and then uh I've had a very nice career with CBS for about twenty years now.
Presenter asks
6:18How do you build your act? Do you like to start with a bash and then slow down in the middle, or do you start easy and do a steady build-up?
I do start out easy and then build. It's uh I think that's more palatable for the audience. I sense that it's much better than crashing them over the head.
Presenter asks
0:52What kind of a world was Antonio Dominic Benedetto born into?
Well, it was um right at the beginning of the uh Franklin Delano Roosevelt era, coming up out of the Depression. And uh it was in a town called Astoria outside of uh New York City... I had a very warm upbringing because I had a beautiful father and mother and sister and brother and we were all very close and all our relatives were close.
Presenter asks
2:00Where did the music come from? Was the music in the family naturally?
My father my father was a wonderful singer. My brother sang uh as a youngster. He sang in the Metropolitan Opera, Solo Spots and He was called the Little Caruso and yeah, so I always had an ear for very good music.
Presenter asks
4:46Do you remember the first time that you sang publicly?
Uh, I sang with my brother a lot, you know, very competitively. It was fun though. But then my first uh My job as a singer was uh when I was sixteen years old and I was a singing waiter and uh used to uh wait on tables and uh take requests and two Irish waiters would take me in the back uh two old timers and teach me the songs real fast and out of necessity I would learn them real quick and come out and get extra money for the weekend.
Presenter asks
7:59Why is it particularly that you like working with jazz people?
Well, it creates a spontaneity, a a vitleness, uh, an unpredictability on stage instead of a set program, something that's so predictable and it's a great scare on stage to become stale and very predictable. So you have to do the unexpected and and jazz artists live for the moment and they play unexpected things and Then it's a matter of just um getting properly involved with them on stage and having something happen that you didn't plan.
Presenter asks
20:25What were the circumstances of [recording "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"]?
Well, Ralph Sarin, my music director. He's always found my songs through the years and uh we were on our way to the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco and We were in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and playing in a supper club there. And he said, I think this would be a good song. The people in the city of San Francisco love their city. And I think this would be a good song for them. And I went about learning the song. And as soon as I performed it, everybody got terribly excited in that area. So they said, please rush in and record this as soon as possible.
Presenter asks
27:14How does the voice change over the years? How do you find it now?
Well, I have this uh ambition that Try and get better as I get older. And I've had very good teachers. And I I'm just hoping to get lucky enough to keep my health. And if I do, I think I'll succeed with my ambition to try and get better as I get older.
“I've always felt like I'd like to sing and perform for people.”
“I personally like the unexpected and uh I don't like to preplan my life too long ahead.”
“I think the word is care rather than nervousness, you know. This business of butterflies before a show. If you don't get that feeling … Something misses in the performance.”
“I would like to just uh keep doing exactly what I'm doing, but I'd like to hone it. I'd like to widen whatever I know now.”
“I've always had a passion to uh sing and paint and uh it's funny that my life has just been in focus that way right through my whole life.”
“I think what happened is in those days you had a a terrific accent on integrity and quality, similar to a Rolls-Royce attitude... and all of a sudden it became an age of greed, you know, where the money became first and the the artistry was secondary.”
“I've always liked it, as I like it to this moment. I like singing it. Everybody said, Don't you get tired of singing it. And I always say, Do you get tired of making love?”