Antonia Bennett had the benefit of learning from the best.
Not only did the jazz vocalist perform with her legendary father, the late Tony Bennett, since she was young, but she also was exposed to many of his famous friends.
“Especially in Beverly Hills at that time, there were a lot of talented people that lived nearby, like Ella Fitzgerald and Rosemary Clooney,” she said. “Our neighbor was songwriter Sammy Cahn, who lived right across the street. Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire were within walking distance. When my parents would have parties, they would all be there and get us to sing around the piano. There was a lot of exposure to people who were at the top of their craft who loved what they did and got to do it. It just became a possibility for me.”
Bennett will perform at 8 p.m. Aug. 9 with the Carmel Symphony Orchestra at the Palladium at the Center for the Performing Arts in Carmel. She is the opening-night headliner for the Carmel Jazz Festival, set for Aug. 9-10. She will sing songs by George Gershwin and Duke Ellington. Saxophonist Bryan Thompson, who performs as B. Thompson, will have a one-hour set at 6:30 p.m.
The 50-year-old Bennett said she is excited to work with Carmel Symphony and Joel Smirnoff. Bennett said her relationship with Smirnoff goes back several years because he was good friends with her father.
“It’s nice to do something together,” she said. “To celebrate Ellington and Gershwin is very meaningful.”
Bennett said some of the arrangements are Smirnoff’s and some are her own. Smirnoff is working on an arrangement of Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing.”
In addition to performances, Bennett has plans to release a holiday album.
“We’re just finished that and are in the process of mixing it now,” she said.
A single will likely be released from it this fall, followed by a full release near the holidays.
“I’m excited about that because the holidays were always such a big deal in my family,” Bennett said. “I got to record a lot of the songs that I grew up singing. In a way, it’s a tribute to my father. He loved holidays so much and I think he made two or three holiday records over his career span.”
Bennett said she and her dad sang a duet on “I’ve Got My Love to Keep me Warm” on one of his holiday albums.
“Just to be able to redo some of those classic holiday songs helped me to honor him,” she said. “This is a way to keep him close to my heart.”
Tony Bennett died July 21, 2023, at age 96.
She has another album called “Expressions,” which she plans to release after the holiday album. One of her original songs, “Right On Time,” has already been released as a single. She said likely one more single will be released this year
“We’re going to maybe release one more single this year and then at the beginning of the year, drop another single,” she said. “Then sometime in that year, we’ll release the rest of the record. That album is a really good reflection today of who I am as an artist because it’s half standards and half original songs. It’s a nice compilation and a very strong record of things that I love.”
Besides Gershwin and Ellington, Cole Porter is another of her favorites.
“I grew up with all those songs and watched a lot of musical theater and plays growing up,” she said. “My parents did a great job of exposing me to all the arts. I used to watch shows like ‘Oklahoma!’ and I would memorize all the songs in one weekend. I was doing that constantly because there are so many great musicals and songs. When you have such a rich library to pull from, there is always something new to do. You can do the same song over and over and it never gets old because the lyrics are so rich and meaningful, and the harmonies are so beautiful that you can tell the story slightly differently each time you do it.”
For more, visit carmelsymphony.org and carmeljazzfest.com.
