Tony Bennett remembers Louis Armstrong with new album `A Wonderful World'

Jet, Dec 16, 2002

Veteran singer Tony Bennett pays tribute to his music friend the late legendary jazz performer Louis "Pops" Armstrong on his new album A Wonderful World.

Bennett teams up with singer k.d. lang on the album that features songs associated with Armstrong including, La Vie En Rose, If We Never Meet Again, I'm Confessin' (That I Love You), Dream A Little Dream Of Me and the ever-beautiful Armstrong classic What A Wonderful World.

"Louis is the master of music," Bennett told JET. "Whatever the fashion is in music, whether it's grunge, rap or hip hop and even bebop and swing, he invented swing, no matter what new fashion comes along in music, you'll find that Louis did it. He's the source. He influenced Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and anybody who likes to sing the jazz pop music. He influenced all of us."

Bennett recalls hearing Armstrong's What A Wonderful World. "I remembered hearing a version of Louis singing this song in the 1970s during the Vietnam War. He opened the song with his own musings about the state of the world and all the discontent and strife, yet in typical `Pops' fashion, he put it all into perspective and let you know in the end it will all be fine."

He says the song is even more relevant and needed today in light of last year's 9/11 tragedy. "Everybody got so traumatized that my first intuition was to do something calming, somehow," Bennett explains.

"And Louis had some beautiful ballads and introduced so many soft, mellow songs that were so good but are not heard on Top 40 radio stations anymore. I decided to do a calm album."

Bennett recalls his fondest memory of Armstrong was his modesty and his commitment to justice and equality. "I loved the fact, that as great as he was, he was very, very humble. And I like the fact that when the girls were tragically bombed down in Birmingham, he reprimanded President Eisenhower for not going down there and straightening those guys out. At the time Eisenhower wanted him to be the United States Ambassador to Russia, but he turned down being an ambassador for the United Sates. He rejected it. He was angry at the fact that they didn't really reprimand those guys quickly. He believed in justice being done."

Bennett has long embraced Black culture and Black causes. He marched in Selma with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and always supported the Civil Rights Movement by lending his name, talent and donating funds to the cause.

"I just can't believe how African-Americans have been mistreated in this country. That's not what America is all about. Our constitution says we are all here."

Reflecting on his love of Black music and Black culture, he says, "It's a great adventure there. I must tell you. A lot of soul."