2023 – My Day With Tony Bennett (R.I.P.) & Friends
(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on July 24, 2023)
Sometime in May, 1987, I got a call from a publicist who had a very interesting assignment for me. I’m not sure why I got the call, but it may have had something to do with the fact that I lived in the town next to where this shoot was to take place (what did you expect me to say – talent?).
So, on Friday, May 29, 1987, I drove the 3 miles from where I was living in Teaneck, NJ, to a house on the East Hill in Englewood – the well-to-do part of town. The house had a recording studio in its basement and – from 4-7pm – I was to photograph Englewood resident Tony Bennett (and a couple of guests) recording an album.
It wasn’t Tony’s house and studio, but rather his son’s – recording engineer Dae Bennett. It was called – appropriately – Hillside Studio.
I was right in the middle of my Mr. Metal years, so this was a pretty cool change of pace. Actually, this wasn’t the only unusual shoot I had that weekend: I shot this on a Friday and on Sunday, I shot a local college graduation that featured Phil Collins in cap and gown.
The “couple of guests” were fellow Englewood resident Dizzy Gillespie in the afternoon and – completing the all-Englewood lineup – was evening guest George Benson (does it count that I lived in Englewood for 3 years in the early 70s?).
Most of my images from that day were still slides and negatives, so this meant that I had a whole lot of scanning to do this past Saturday morning.
Most of the recording studio images have never been seen before (5 are on my site).
THE AFTERNOON SESSION
I’m in Dizzy’s recording booth and Tony’s next door:
Now I’m in Tony’s:
I always wore two cameras: one color and one B&W and I used both to get shots of Tony thumbs-upping Dizzy. I think I like the Dizzy’s hands and horn shadow one better:
Dizzy Gillespie playing piano for Tony Bennett? This is a real rare one!
Dizzy and Tony go over the music:
I have no idea what was going on here, but most of the guys seemed to like it:
More studio talk:
I love this shot:
I had a lot of problems with this shot – as you probably noticed – but I couldn’t leave this happy moment out. I don’t know if Dizzy had just arrived or was leaving, but I chose this to be the last one of him in this post:
Aside from the thumbs-up pair, these are all unposed candids.
THE EVENING SESSION
As I recall, George was present for a much shorter time than Dizzy. I just noticed on the album’s track listing that Dizzy was on two songs and George was on one, so maybe that’s why. Here’s the album “Bennett Berlin” and the track listing (click to enlarge):
I wish I knew what Tony had just said to George to get this facial response. Maybe “You’re doing this for free, right?”
If this was taken during playback, it looks like things went well:
One for the road?
There’s one other thing I recall from that day and this is how I described it on my site:
At one point, I actually found myself sitting at a long dining room table with George and Tony, listening to non-stop stories.
I got no shots of that – hey, would you interrupt Tony Bennett talking at the dinner table in his (son’s) home just to take a picture?
Yeah – I wish I had gotten a couple of shots of that, but I still think I made the right decision.
Of course – days afterward – I thought of the one knockout shot I wished I had thought of when I had the chance:
Did you ever see photos of Bruce Springsteen and Clarence Clemons playing back-to-back? They’re both leaning way back and shoulders-to-shoulders, almost forming an upside-down “U”.
I would have loved to set up something like that, but with a twist: I would have had Tony and Dizzy switch instruments.
Dizzy would be crooning into a hand-held mic that was held upside-down over his face as Tony would be wailing away on a straight-up-in-the-air trumpet, with his cheeks over-expanded and his eyeballs practically popping out of his head.
(Sigh………..coulda, woulda, shoulda……………)
Snapping back to reality, I did notice one unusual thing on the Friday evening of Tony’s passing. I was watching something on TV after 9pm and during commercials, I jumped over to MTV Classic (MTVC) to see what videos from the old “Headbangers’ Ball” they were playing on the “Metal Mayhem” show (I guess old habits die hard).
So what molten metal oldies were they featuring? All Tony Bennett duets with female singers! Of course, I took pictures of it:
The first two are videos with Lady Gaga. I don’t recall who the third one was with, but just seeing an aging Tony Bennett with the words “Metal Mayhem” under his face makes this a picture worth taking!
“Metal Mayhem” runs from 9pm to midnight on Fridays. Tony and the babes ran solid from 9-11 and then from 11-12, they alternated those same videos with actual metal ones. Very weird, but strangely appropriate. And I can find no mention of this online. I can’t be the only one who noticed this.
I thought that was it, but as I’m typing this on Sunday night, I’ve got MTVC’s “Rock Block” on…………and they’re running Tony’s duets again! And they threw in the video for “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”:
Tony Bennett – crossing musical genres even in death!
I never got to shoot him in concert, but this very unique assignment in Englewood more than made up for that.
And that’s what was cool about my career – you never knew what was coming next.
Rest in peace, Tony………………and thanks!
Very cool, Bob. Thanks. As I recall, Bennett’s son later purchased the iconic Englewood train station and converted it into a recording studio used by Stevie Wonder (among others). Wonder and his entourage were frequent diners at local restaurants in Englewood when we lived there in the 90’s and early 00’s.
That’s right. Bennett Studios ran from 2001 to 2011 in that RR station. The unique thing about that place was that it was very close to the John Harms Theater (now BergenPac) and they ran cables between the two buildings and could record vocal performances – be they live shows or album recording with theater sound/acoustics.