Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett to record jazz album

Following collaboration on The Lady is a Tramp, Gaga proposes big-band project with 86-year-old singer

Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett are making a jazz album together. The pop star and the crooner are reportedly set to collaborate on a big-band full length album, singing songs by a "very underrated, very famous" jazz songwriter.

"Of all things, she called me from New Zealand and said, 'I want to do a jazz album with you,'" Bennett revealed in a new interview with Rolling Stone. "And I said, 'You got it!'"

Gaga and Bennett previously collaborated on a version of the Rodgers and Hart song The Lady is a Tramp, released last year. But now, Bennett said, they want to do a full LP "as soon as [they] can", working with arranger Marion Evans and "a big swing band". The plan is to record songs by an as-yet unrevealed composer: someone "not as famous as Gershwin or Porter ... but he did as many hit songs as anybody". "I can't mention the composer because I don't want anybody to do it before we do it," Bennett admitted.

Bennett, who is 86, said that he calls Lady Gaga "the musical Picasso". "Every day she changes, she has so many ideas and carries them out," he marvelled. "[And] a lot of people don't know it, but she's a phenomenal jazz singer."

Contributor

Sean Michaels

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga review – Gaga is a wonder
There may be 60 years between them, but these two Italian-Americans find joyous common ground as they swing through 11 standards, writes Caroline Sullivan

Caroline Sullivan

18, Sep, 2014 @10:33 PM

Article image
Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett: Love for Sale review – jazz interloper livens up crooner’s swansong
The pop diva and jazz maestro defy the latter’s recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis and team up once again, this time for a creditable set of Cole Porter covers

Alexis Petridis

30, Sep, 2021 @1:38 PM

Article image
Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga review – cheeky fun from jazz royalty and pop's Mother Monster
Royal Albert Hall, London
The chemistry is real between the Cheek to Cheek duo as Bennett gives Gaga gravitas, and she gives him energy

Caroline Sullivan

09, Jun, 2015 @12:00 PM

Article image
Lady Gaga: 'I tell Tony Bennett every day that he saved my life'
Gaga says she would have given up singing had the veteran crooner not become someone she could ‘relate to’

Sean Michaels

12, Sep, 2014 @6:30 AM

Article image
Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga: Love for Sale review – a fond farewell
On what will be the 95-year-old’s final album, this unlikely duo reunite for a smooth set of Cole Porter covers

Michael Cragg

03, Oct, 2021 @12:00 PM

Article image
Tony Bennett interview: Frank Sinatra, Amy Winehouse and me

If Tony Bennett asks you to duet, you say yes – thus his new album features the likes of Lady Gaga and Amy Winehouse. He tells Caroline Sullivan why he owes it all to Sinatra

Caroline Sullivan

08, Sep, 2011 @9:29 PM

Article image
For sale: Tony Bennett's nude sketch of Lady Gaga
Crooner's charcoal rendition of pop star up for auction on eBay, with bidding beginning at £3,200

Sean Michaels

13, Dec, 2011 @12:29 PM

Article image
From Frank Sinatra to Lady Gaga: Tony Bennett’s greatest duets
The legendary singer’s death leaves behind a career filled with captivating duets alongside contemporaries and younger stars

Rob LeDonne

24, Jul, 2023 @5:00 PM

Article image
Tony Bennett, 94, diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease
Diagnosis made in 2016 and revealed in new magazine article, as singer prepares new duets album with Lady Gaga

Ben Beaumont-Thomas

01, Feb, 2021 @4:22 PM

Article image
Amy Winehouse is in my prayers, says Tony Bennett

Veteran singer expresses concern for musician with whom he recorded a song for a new album of duets

Caroline Sullivan

04, Jul, 2011 @5:23 PM