The 1976 Newport Jazz Festival opened with an afternoon double bill of Tony Bennett’s working quartet and The Bill Evans Trio. A combination that allowed the two groups to do their own thing with the opportunity for Tony and Bill to meet in the middle for a lovely rendition of My Foolish Heart. Evans’ trio is on top form and features the virtuosic double bass of Eddie Gomez with Eliot Zigmund on drums. Bennett’s working group delivers perfect accompaniment and stretches out on I Got Rhythm and It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).
The second disc here is the soundtrack of a TV special from the following year which features Bennett and Evans as a duo. It formed part of the promotional activities for their second collaboration Together Again (1977).
Two incredible performances presented here, Together and Apart, at the Newport Jazz Festival 1976, and a year later in San Francisco.
Disc One
Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, RI 25th June 1976 WKCR-FM
Tony Bennett
(with his rhythm section)
1. WKCR intro/ Watch What Happens
2. The Best is Yet To Come
3. I Got Rhythm
4. Over The Rainbow
Bill Evans Trio
5. Sugar Plum
6. Up With The Lark
7. TTT
Bill Evans with Tony Bennett
8. My Foolish Heart
Tony Bennett
(with his rhythm section)
9. I Wanna Be Around
10. I Left My Heart In San Francisco
Bill Evans Trio
11. Someday My Prince Will Come
12. Minah (All Mine)
Tony Bennett
(with his rhythm section)
13. It Don’t Mean A Thing / Drum Solo / Reprise
14. New York State Of Mind
15. Once Upon A Time
16. In Your Own Sweet Way
17. Outro
Disc Two
Columbia Studios, San Francisco, CA, September 1977 PBS/CBC
1. Piano Solo Intro / The Bad And The Beautiful
2. Lucky To Be Me
3. My Foolish Heart
4. When In Rome
5. We’ll Catch Up Some Other Time
6. A Child Is Born
7. Make Someone Happy
8. We’ll Be Together Again
9. Piano Solo Outro / The Bad And The Beautiful