Review: Tony Bennett flies his audience to the moon with stellar San Diego concert

Had Tony Bennett performed his Bayside Summer Nights concert at Embarcadero Marina Park South on July 12, as originally scheduled, he would have done so as an improbably spry 90-year-old. By postponing that date until Tuesday, he instead performed here as an improbably spry 91-year old.

Or, as he sang with a knowing wink during “This is All I Ask,” his third selection: As I approach the prime of my life … I will stay younger than spring.

The man born Anthony Dominick Benedetto on Aug. 3, 1926, reiterated his prime-time point during his final selection of the evening, the Bart Howard-penned “Fly Me to the Moon.”

With a soft-shoe bounce in his step, even after standing throughout the previous 73 minutes of his performance, Bennett sang: Let me play among the stars / Let me see what spring is like / On Jupiter and Mars.

Accordingly, for the entire time this vital, oh-so-debonair American music legend was on stage, he exuded the timeless joy of someone who clearly revels in his work. Leading a talent-rich quartet, he performed with such vocal vim and vigor that he left no doubt about who’s the boss.

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Tony Bennett performed at the San Diego Symphony’s Bayside Summer Nights in San Diego in August, 2017.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Pianist Tom Ranier prepares to play with Tony Bennett.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Tony Bennett performs at Bayside Summer Nights in San Diego.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Tony Bennett performs at Bayside Summer Nights in San Diego.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Tony Bennett performs at Bayside Summer Nights in San Diego.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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People watch Tony Bennett perform.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Tony Bennett performs at Bayside Summer Nights in San Diego.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Tony Bennett performs at Bayside Summer Nights in San Diego.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Tony Bennett performs at Bayside Summer Nights in San Diego.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Tony Bennett performs at Bayside Summer Nights in San Diego.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Tony Bennett performs at Bayside Summer Nights in San Diego.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Tony Bennett performs at Bayside Summer Nights in San Diego.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Tony Bennett performs at Bayside Summer Nights in San Diego.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Tony Bennett performs at Bayside Summer Nights in San Diego.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Fans applaud Tony Bennett as he performs at Bayside Summer Nights.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Tony Bennett performs at Bayside Summer Nights in San Diego.  (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Yet, while Bruce Springsteen was all of 33 when he wrote “Glory Days” — his wry 1980s hit about people reflecting on the real and imagined triumphs of their lives — Bennett is still living his own glory days.

In November, his memoir, “Just Getting Started,” was published. It came 20 years after the first of his five books, 1996’s “What My Heart Has Seen.”

In December, he starred in a two-hour 90th birthday concert TV special that featured such high-profile fans as Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Diana Krall and Elton John. It also featured Lady Gaga, with whom he won a 2015 Grammy Award for their hit duets album, “Cheek to Cheek.” He won another last year — his 18th Grammy thus far — for “The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern,” a duo outing with jazz piano great Bill Charlap.

In June, the Library of Congress announced Bennett will receive this year’s prestigious Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, an honor previously bestowed upon Wonder, Carole King, Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson and the songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

In July, Bennett concluded his latest tour of Europe and did two shows at the nearly 18,000-capacity Hollywood Bowl. His performance here Tuesday was the second in a series of concert dates that continue into early December.

A less seasoned, less assured artist would have boasted of these accomplishments from the stage. Bennett didn’t mention any of them, although he had plenty of reasons to beam Tuesday. And beam he did as he led the sold-out audience of 4,000 in clapping along in time while he sang a lively “Smile,” shortly before the conclusion of his triumphant concert.

The lyrics to this 1936 gem by Charlie Chaplin are a bittersweet ode to resiliency in the face of adversity, but Bennett focused on the song’s sweetness and optimism as he delivered the lyrics with transcendent grace.

He did the same on “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road),” which he recorded 60 years ago as a bright-eyed youngster of 31. His 1957 version followed Fred Astaire’s original 1943 rendition in the film “The Sky’s the Limit,” which in turn inspired Frank Sinatra’s well-known 1947 recording. The differences are striking.

Sinatra’s “One for My Baby” is a torch ballad filled with the resignation and hard-won wisdom of a man who has lived, loved and lost. The song’s protagonist is seated in a bar, very late at night, drowning in his sorrows after yet another failed love affair.

But not the ebullient Bennett, who breathed new life into the song on record and again at his Tuesday concert.

Singing — and swinging — on top of a snappy shuffle beat, he transformed “One for My Baby” into a jubilant romp that celebrates a life very well lived and looks forward to a rosy future. He also took obvious delight after singing the jukebox-inspired couplet: So drop another nickel in the machine.

“A nickel!” Bennett chortled, just before Tom Ranier launched into a sparkling piano solo.

Had the next song been “Keep on the Sunny Side,” it would have made perfect thematic sense. Instead, Bennett did the equally upbeat “For Once in My Life,” which earned him one of several standing ovations and — like many of the selections before it — concluded with a booming vocal flourish that would leave many singers half his age or younger feeling winded.

True, there was a periodic cragginess to Bennett’s singing Tuesday, but he has always favored emotional depth over note-perfect technique. And that craggy, lived-in quality is precisely what gives his vocal performances so much character.

Whether belting out “I Got Rhythm,” caressing “It Amazes Me” and “But Beautiful,” or soaring through “Steppin’ Out with My Baby,” Bennett exulted in the joy of making music in front of his adoring, multigenerational audience here. His version of “The Way You Look Tonight” was wonderfully understated, while the stunning “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” — which marked the start of his recording career in 1950 — was suffused with bluesy elan.

He received first-rate support throughout from pianist Ranier, guitar ace Gray Sargent, rock-solid bassist Marshall Wood and former Count Basie drummer Harold Jones, who played with equal elegance at brisk and whisper-soft tempos alike.

“This is my symphony orchestra!” said Bennett, who clearly savored every nimble note by his band mates.

Some may ponder how much longer this happily married vocal giant, who is 41 years older than his third wife, can continue to tour and record. The seemingly tireless Bennett offered the best response near the conclusion of his concert Tuesday, when he sang the final lines of George and Ira Gershwin’s exultant “Who Cares (As Long As You Care For Me).”

Who cares how history rates me? / Long as your kiss intoxicates me? / Why should I care? / Life is one long jubilee / So long as I care for you / And you care for me!

Correction: The original version of this review incorrectly indicated that Frank Sinatra sang “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” in the 1943 movie, “The Sky’s the Limit.” Sinatra recorded the song in 1947; Fred Astaire performed it in the movie.

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Twitter @georgevarga