Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga

And the beat goes on. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Together, Tony Bennett and Barbra Streisand have well over a century in the music business. Their music has bridged generations and, along the way, they have reinvented themselves many times. And yet in today’s topsy-turvy music world, even they have to kowtow to Mammon.

Many partners . . .

For Babs, the gimmick is an album called Partners. She sings her own songbook with a dozen men. One is her own son, and one is dead. The songs are the usual suspects — “People,” “The Way We Were,” “What Kind of Fool” — and a bevy of standards. While the songs are old, the arrangements are new, or at least newish. In recent years, Barbra’s once-innovative arrangements from the likes of Peter Matz, Michel Legrand, and Ray Ellis have mostly become layers of wet muted sound that don’t highlight the song and singer so much as drown them in a tub of stringy glue. But Partners has some good arrangements, tailored to the vocal abilities (or, in some cases, inabilities) of her partners.

Partners has already become Streisand’s 10th number one album, making her the first artist to have number one albums in each of the past six decades. Here are the highlights:

• “People” is redone with a bossa nova beat and has a lovely harmonica solo by partner Stevie Wonder
• “The Way We Were” becomes a duet with Lionel Richie
• “Come Rain or Come Shine” shines as Barbra vocally matches the blues-guitar licks of John Mayer
• “What Kind of Fool” is a revelation — it’s a fine song now that the wa-wa-box voice of Barry Gibb is replaced by a solid John Legend vocal
• “It Had To Be You,” with Michael Bublé, is one of the few upbeat tunes
• “Somewhere” with Josh Groban — yes, she can still hit those notes.
• “Love Me Tender” with Elvis is beautifully put together

Probably because of her Broadway and movie musical background, Barbra plays well with other singers. So even when she is singing in a genre she rarely visits, as in a country tune with Blake Shelton, a semi-operatic tune with Andrea Bocelli, or a duet with a ghost, she makes it work.

. . . or just one

For Tony, the gimmick is being Cheek to Cheek with Lady Gaga. And yes, she can sing. Her outrageous public persona is actually a well-crafted PR campaign that has made her the biggest name in pop music. Teaming with Tony Bennett is just one more outrageous costume for her, but it is hardly innovative. Many other pop singers have trod this ground before.

In the 1980s, Linda Ronstadt asked the great arranger Nelson Riddle to work on a song with her. He didn’t do songs, he responded, just albums. So, they joined forces on one of the most successful series of albums of the decade — What’s New, Lush Life, and For Sentimental Reasons sold over 7 million copies. Others from the pop world followed her lead, and the next two decades saw a bevy of '60s and '70s rockers take on standards: Rod Stewart, Barry Manilow, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, even Ringo and Paul! All have taken the melodic plunge into Porter, Berlin, Gershwin, and Rodgers and Hart.

Tony has been successfully singing this music for over 60 years, but he rarely makes music with another singer. In fact, k.d. lang is the only other singer who has shared an entire album (A Wonderful World) with Tony, although he has made two previous albums of duets with a mix of singers. He doesn’t play well with other singers — musicians yes, singers no — because of his unique sense of timing and his incredible vocal abilities.

Left in the dust

So his collaboration with Lady Gaga is a mixed bag. She sings very well and on her solo songs (“Lush Life,” “Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye,” and “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)”) proves that she is a fine jazz singer. Tony is Tony. He brings so much musicianship to every song that it’s like hearing them for the first time. He has two solos, “Sophisticated Lady” and “Don’t Wait Too Long,” and a third song, “Goody Goody,” is a revenge song he sings while she throws out one-liners about how mean he is to be so happy when she’s so sad.

The only problem is when they are singing together, which is not often, actually. Yes, they do the same song, but they sing different verses, coming together only at the end of the song. When they do sing together, she has trouble figuring out where he is going and it’s obvious that he isn’t listening to her — and why would he? He knows only one way of singing, so she had better follow him. Sometimes, she gets lost.

But the CD is still a winner with incredible arrangements and solo performances by a bevy of great musicians. “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”, “Let’s Face the Music and Dance,” “Nature Boy," and the title song, “Cheek to Cheek,” are standouts.

So the lesson is — sometimes gimmicks work.

Streisand: photo by lifescript via Creative Commons/Flickr/Wikimedia