Antonia Bennett’s Sings Songs of Love at Café Carlyle

Touring with her father Tony Bennett since she was a little girl, Antonia Bennett learned a thing or two about performing. For her impressive debut at the Café Carlyle, she sings classics from the American songbook backed by a first rate jazz band, with Spike Wilner on piano, especially good on a jazzy “Tea for Two,” Paul Nowinsky on bass, and Anthony Pinciotti on drums. A demure redhead with a lovely voice, Antonia Bennett introduced George Gershwin’s “Nice Work If You Can Get It:” “I love to sing this as a love song, but it’s about prostitutes.” The audience ate it up. Tony Bennett and his wife Susan, seated near the stage in this intimate room, cheered his daughter on. He had tweeted, he loved May anticipating Antonia’s special Café Carlyle run.

Paying homage to some favorite performers, Tommy Flanagan and Ella Fitzgerald, Bennett announcing that she shared a birth month with the legendary singer who would have been 100 in April. Bennett sang a medley of “Hurray for Love,” “I’m Through With Love,” “Let’s Fall in Love,” “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.” When she said she loves love songs, she really means it, noting Cole Porter’s “masterpiece,” “Every Time We Say Goodbye.”

Dedicating her rendition of George Gershwin’s “Our Love is Here to Stay” to Rosemary Clooney, Antonia Bennett closed her set with Cole Porter’s “From This Moment On,” and encored with “Always On My Mind,” reminding everyone that it was Brenda Lee who first recorded it, not Willie Nelson. Touring with the greats has great effect.

A version of this post also appears on Gossip Central.