I don’t care what color Lady Gaga’s hair is, or how high her platform shoes are, or what kind of mask she
is wearing. The bottom line is, Lady Gaga is artistic genius and she can flat out Sing! Not only can
she sing, the girl can Freaking Sang!! Then again this is no surprise to me, I said it when she did the
first tune with Tony Bennett “The Lady Is A Tramp”. Wow, that was Fabuuuuuuu-lous! Gaga, just claim
yourself a spot among the lady jazz divas of the world! Just own it and wait for everyone to catch up to
you and say, “yes you are a jazz diva”. Yet at the time I also knew neither the pop world nor,
unfortunately the jazz world would give Gaga that nod!

When I brought it to the attention of many the first thing out of their mouths was, oh she is weird or,
her hair is blue, she wears crazy outfits! So, I’m saying…”who cares about that, do you hear this girls
voice”! The Voice! The pitch, the tone, the unique vocal phrasing, the range of notes!! This has to
be one of the best renditions of Lady Is A Tramp, Ever! Gaga is a vocal powerhouse from highs to lows and
not a note wrong in between. Every jazz musician looks for and over time develops their own sound, their
own voice, their own way of phasing be it on a saxophone, trumpet or with vocal cords. Lady Gaga’s sound
transcends the already historic compositions into individual works of art as if heard again for the first
time.

Fast forward to today on the eve of the new release with Tony Bennett, “Cheek To Cheek”
The Lady is back for more and with a vengeance that says, oh so you thought that first song was just my
latest Hollywood gimmick? Well, how you like me now! Then she steps to the mic and TKO knocks your socks
off with Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” then lays it down with Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes”. All of the
jazz standard masters come out to play on this Cd. Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, Oscar Hammerstein and
more. What’s even better is Lady Gaga does every single one of them justice with class and vocal elegance.
Her voice is Liza Minnelli powerful, with Bette Midler playfulness, ebbing from Broadway stage
characteristics to premier big band front girl soloist who can hold her own against any challenger.

Gaga brings the goods along side the incomparable Tony Bennett. What else would we expect from Tony but
perfection, he is the quintessential star of stars and he always gets it right. The last Cd Duets was
magnificent! Years from now they will be hailing him even more of a genius for stepping out not only with
Lady Gaga but lets not forget another Hollywood bad girl named Amy Winehouse who could sing the jazzy blues
as if her mama wrote the stuff. Frankly speaking, in my opinion she was another “Lady Day” in the making.
I’m sure to get some frowns on that statement.

Tony, you got it right my friend, you have been doing this long enough to know talent when you hear it.
Out of all of the thousands of female vocalist around the world you picked Gaga for a reason. You hear the
magic, that something special in Lady Gaga’s instrument that sounds like no other. There is no need for you
to wait for the world to tell you who’s got what it takes. Probably be waiting a while on that one.

You also have the vision to understand that the new generation of youth needs a conduit into one of the
greatest American art forms ever created, Jazz! If the conduit is Amy and Gaga and whomever else may be in
line, then they are the right choices, its not your fault that the American world of jazz is so darn slow to
catch up to the program, because this Cd is something special.

People just go and buy the cd, add this piece of genius to your collection , give Tony & Gaga the nod and
enjoy the music for years to come! Let’s see if this gets the nominations it deserves down the road!

Great Music!

“iceman” LT

p.s…I’m happy to say, this is one of the first stories I wrote for the new site several months ago. Notice the last line of the story. Hahaha,   The “iceman” never misses a beat, I guess Tony & Gaga won a Grammy!!