The late, great Tony Bennett recorded a duet with Lady Gaga many years ago and immediately understood the whole picture of what an extraordinary jazz singer she was.
This idea seemed strange to all of us who know Gaga from her album “Fame” and her hit single, Meat Dress.
But Tony knew that, and they ended up making two albums together and touring the world.
Gaga’s silky tones caress the 11 standards and two original songs from her album Harlequin, which is the soundtrack for this week’s release of Joker: Folie à Deux.
It doesn’t matter if the movie is good or bad. This album is phenomenal and will get a lot of attention at the Grammys. With the hit of her Bruno Mars duet “Die With a Smile,” Gaga stole all the attention from the dozen or so singers who thought this year was over.
“Harlequin” suddenly shot to No. 1 on the iTunes chart Friday morning and will likely stay there for a while.
Gaga includes two original songs on this cover album: “Happy Mistake” and “Folie a Deux.” The rest are covers of jazz standards like the one she recorded with Tony Bennett. So how does she make money from the sales of “Harlequin” when she can earn money from publishing, that is, from writing songs?
The answer is because she added her name to the credits for four songs. And it’s not just her, her fiancé Michael Polanski is also a high-tech financier not previously known for his songwriting ability. They sing Nacio Herb Brown’s “Good Morning,” Harold Arlen’s “Get Happy,” the traditional song “Oh When the Saints,” and Cy Coleman’s “If My Friends.” They gave their names to songs such as “Could See Me Now.”
It is very unusual for lighters to be added to older songs, unless the recording artist has licensed the sampling. However, Cy Coleman’s publisher says that this did not happen.
