Tony Bennett Covered James Moody in 1967

[JSngry]

https://bloggingtonybennett.com/song-of-the-day-coffee-break-2/

Alos....I can't find a recording by Moody of this. So...wtf? How did THAT get HERE????

[JSngry]

Date September 1, 1967

Location New York, NY

Vocals Tony Bennett

Musicians

Conductor Marion Evans, Torrie Zito

Piano John Bunch

Bass Milt Hinton

Drums Sol Gubin

Guitar Bucky Pizzarelli

Reeds Pete Fanelli, Romeo Penque, Sol Schlinger, Joe Soldo, Bobby Tricarico

Trumpe tAl De Risi, Johnny Frosk, Bernie Glow, Marky Markowitz

Trombone Sy Berger, Urbie Green, Dick Hixson, John Messner

Harp Corky Hale

Percussion Bobbie Rosengarden

Violin Julius Brand, Fred Buldrini, Leo Cahn, Max Cahn, Paul Gershman, Harry Katzman, Leo Kruczek, Joe Malin, George Ockner, John Pintavalle, Max Polikoff, Matthew Raimondi, Aaron Rosand, Tosha Samoroff, Julius Schachter, Gerald Tarack

Viola Al Brown, Leon Frengut, Theodore Israel, Emanuel Vardi

https://discography.bloggingtonybennett.com/session/september-1-1967/

 

 

[mikeweil]

Maybe Moody recorded it under a different tite? That happens when lyrics are written after the tune.

[JSngry]

Moody is the only composer listed, so he would be the lyricist on his own song. Although the lyrics do have a bit of Eddie Jefferson vibe to them, maybe.

I am just wondering how this ended up on a Tony Bennett record! 

And check out Milt Hinton!!! 

[mikeweil]

23 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Although the lyrics do have a bit of Eddie Jefferson vibe to them, maybe. 

As close as Jefferson and Moody were, they could have "forgotten" to credit him. 

I'll check all of the Moody pieces I have with Jefferson singing.

[Teasing the Korean]

28 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I am just wondering how this ended up on a Tony Bennett record! 

Why?  Tony was relatively plugged in for a pop-oriented jazz singer, or a jazz-oriented pop singer, depending on your politics.

[JSngry]

Or maybe whoever it was just didn't know by the time it came to write in down on whatever they wrote it on to get it printed on the label? This was Columbia, right? Hardly a one man shop... Bureaucracy galore! 

[mikeweil]

This monumental box set, btw., seems to be the only CD issue of this album:

https://www.discogs.com/release/10164486-Tony-Bennett-The-Complete-Collection

[JSngry]

I've been using Spotify to go back through MOR records of the late 60s/early 70s just to see what treats might be buried in there. This song was one such treat 

[Rooster_Ties]

My Google-Fu isn’t coming up with anything at all for: 1) the song title as a specific string, plus 2) Moody but 3) without any mention of Bennett (and I also stripped out the title of another Moody song on some 32jazz-ish BS comp CD that has “coffee break” in the title of the CD, which includes another presumably unrelated Moody tune called “simplicity and beauty”).

Searching on this provides a couple dozen hits, but none of them have anything to do with James Moody the jazz musician.

Google search key: “coffee break” “james moody” -Bennett -Simplicity -Beauty

Edited September 18, 2022 by Rooster_Ties

[mikeweil]

The song title seems to have been used by half a dozen jazzmen for different tunes, it seems.

[JSngry]

40 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Why?  Tony was relatively plugged in for a pop-oriented jazz singer, or a jazz-oriented pop singer, depending on your politics.

Not really... more like a pop singer who went slumming. At least at the time it seemed like that.

Other than that, though...there was a process for getting songs placed on records like these, it's not like James Moody popped in to the Columbia studios one day and Tony said hey Moods, got anything for us today? Ya know?

I can think of two people who might have been a conduit, Teo Macero or Torrie Zito. But even then, you're picking tunes for a Tony Bennett record date in 1967, what,/who the hell puts THIS in the pipeline?

Or maybe Bennett heard somebody else do it, asked them to pass it along and he got Torrie Zito to do a chart and it got done? Whose tune is this Tony? James Moody. 

I'm delighted that whoever did it did it, but... recorded in 1967, not released until 1972... not anybody's priority, right? 

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

recorded in 1967, not released until 1972... not anybody's priority, right? 

Tony's entire discography features tunes that were used on LPs many years after they were recorded, for whatever that's worth.

[JSngry]

And the closer you get to either side of the turn of that decade, the truer that seems to get. It's like they were trying to empty it out so they could get him out of there. 

[Teasing the Korean]

9 minutes ago, JSngry said:

And the closer you get to either side of the turn of that decade, the truer that seems to get. It's like they were trying to empty it out so they could get him out of there. 

Do you know his 1957 album The Beat of My Heart with Art Blakey, Sabu, Chico Hamilton, and Candido?  The out-takes from that album sprinkled over years' worth of LPs, including the San Francisco album in the early 1960s. 

[JSngry]

Yes and yes. But it sure seems like once Clive Davis came in that things got really weird for Bennet, like he would do one two "current" songs, and the rest of the album would be vault stuff of varying vintages.

Even the record that made him vomit used a version of "Something" that had been the title cut of an album of his just a year or two earlier 

Pre-Davis, that record of new songs had one cut on their that SCREAM 50s Columbia, Frank DeVol and industrial reverb. 

I'm not in any way a "fan" of Tony Bennett overall, but on any given record...a song, a chart, and his skill set can come together quite nicely 

[Teasing the Korean]

I loves me that Columbia reverb you hear on Tony, Johnny, and Eydie!

 

[gmonahan]

On 9/18/2022 at 1:51 PM, mikeweil said:

This monumental box set, btw., seems to be the only CD issue of this album:

https://www.discogs.com/release/10164486-Tony-Bennett-The-Complete-Collection

Yeah, not exactly Tony's favorite album!

[JSngry]

Looking more deeply at that online discography/sessionography, it would be neat if somebody would reassemble all the mid 60s/early 70s records into session order. I do think that might be a more rewarding listen at this point in time. 

Any session where Torrie Zito did the charts is almost always going to stand out on whatever record the cut ends up on. 

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Looking more deeply at that online discography/sessionography, it would be neat if somebody would reassemble all the mid 60s/early 70s records into session order. I do think that might be a more rewarding listen at this point in time. 

That went on throughout his career.  A leftover from one album would show up someplace a decade later.

[JSngry]

Time for a Purple Chick look at it! 

[medjuck]

I still like his album with Basie-- especially Lost in the Stars.