NEW YORK — Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga say they hope “Cheek to Cheek,” their new album featuring selections from the Great American Songbook, will turn younger people on to jazz music.
“The point of this album is not only to bring Tony and I together to collaborate, but to bring jazz to an entirely new audience,” Gaga said. “This is really about us giving jazz what it deserves, which is the upmost respect and upmost praise.”
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“Cheek to Cheek” features covers of songs from Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” to Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” to Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life.” Gaga and Bennett have worked on the album, to be released Tuesday, for two years.
“Besides having the whole world enjoying her right now, she has a vast group of young people who love her, and they’ve never heard popular jazz music, classical American music,” Bennett said. “And my ambition was to do this album so they would get acquainted with that music.”
Gaga, who grew in New York like Bennett, said she has been singing jazz music since she was 13. She broke onto the music scene in 2008 with multiple No. 1 hits flavored with dance and electronic beats.
Gaga, 28, and Bennett, 88, first collaborated in 2011 on “The Lady Is a Tramp.”
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