Maps of Music

Cloud 7 (1955)

Where the lyrics of Cloud 7 take you, and where it was really made.

Tony Bennett's second album dropped the sound of his early-1950s hit parade for a jazz combo and Great American Songbook standards.

Key places

CBS 30th Street Studio session (1954)

Recording site Columbia 30th Street Studio — Some tracks for Cloud 7 were recorded at the CBS 30th Street Studio in New York on 11 August 1954. The studio is in Manhattan's Kips Bay area. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Cloud 7: second studio album by Tony Bennett
• Released February 25, 1955
• Material drawn from the Great American Songbook
• Ten tracks, five on each side
• Side one opens with I Fall in Love Too Easily (Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne)
• Side two closes with Darn That Dream (Eddie DeLange, Jimmy Van Heusen)
• On November 8, 2011, Sony Music Distribution included the CD in the box set The Complete Collection

Background

• The album presented Bennett differently from his hit parade material of the early 1950s
• It used a combo of jazz musicians instead of a pop studio backing
• Chuck Wayne, the featured guitarist, arranged the album
• Charles Panely, the trumpeter, also arranged the album
• Wayne and Panely shaped the album's sound as its two arrangers

Recording

• The album was recorded between August and December 1954
• Some tracks were recorded at the CBS 30th Street Studio in New York on 11 August 1954
• Other sessions took place in New York on 6 August 1954
• Further sessions took place in New York on 22 December 1954
• Tracks 1 and 4 used a different lineup from the other tracks
• Each session group had its own tenor saxophone, piano, and drummer

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · it.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Early life

• Born Anthony Dominick Benedetto on August 3, 1926, in Long Island City, Queens, New York City.
• Grew up in poverty after his father, a grocer, became unable to work and died when Tony was ten.
• Sang for money from age 13 as a singing waiter in Italian restaurants in Queens.
• Attended New York's School of Industrial Art but dropped out at 16 to help support his family.

Military service

• Drafted into the U.S. Army in November 1944 and fought as an infantryman in the final stages of World War II.
• Stayed in Germany with the occupying force and sang with an Army Special Services band under the name Joe Bari.

Career

• Studied bel canto at the American Theatre Wing on the GI Bill; Pearl Bailey and Bob Hope helped launch him, and Hope shortened his name to Tony Bennett.
• Signed with Columbia Records in 1950; first number-one hit "Because of You" in 1951.
• Shifted toward jazz singing in the late 1950s; "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" (1962) became his signature song.
• Declined commercially during the rock era and struggled with addiction and debt until a comeback in the late 1980s, managed by his son Danny.
• The 1994 MTV Unplugged album won the Grammy for Album of the Year.

Later career

• Collaborated with Lady Gaga from Cheek to Cheek (2014) through Love for Sale (2021).
• Won 20 Grammy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award, and sold more than 50 million records worldwide.
• Received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2005 and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• Co-founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens with Susan Crow.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

Reappraisal

• Thom Jurek of AllMusic praised the genuine emotion in Bennett's voice
• Jurek singled out My Heart Tells Me, Old Devil Moon, and I Can't Believe That You're in Love With Me
• Jurek called the closing track, Darn That Dream, incredible
• Jurek described Bennett's delivery as unhurried, focused, and purposeful
• Jurek said the music is closer to Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours than to lounge mood music
• Jurek added that Columbia's marketing department may have intended the lounge framing at the time

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Tracks 1 and 4 featured Al Cohn on tenor saxophone, Gene DiNovi on piano, and Sonny Igoe on drums
• Other tracks featured Caesar DiMauro on tenor saxophone, Harvey Leonard on piano, and Ed Shaughnessy on drums
• Bennett is credited with the liner notes on the album
• Jonathan Schwartz wrote the liner notes for the CD reissue
• Didier C. Deutsch and Darcy Proper were credited as reissue producers for the CD

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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