The late, great Tony Bennett will be the man of honor at this year’s Jazz at Lincoln Center gala.
The New York City nonprofit announced the 19-time Grammy Award winner will be saluted during the fundraising event taking place April 17 at Frederick P. Rose Hall.
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis will serve as the house band for “Celebrating Tony Bennett,” featuring a glittering lineup to include performances by Bernadette Peters, Rubén Blades, Kristin Chenoweth, Norm Lewis, Kurt Elling, Ekep Nkwelle, Robbie Lee, pianist Bill Charlap and tap dancer Jared Grimes.
Audiences can expect to hear renditions of Bennett staples such as “The Best Is Yet to Come,” “Watch What Happens,” and his 1962 signature song “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
Dinner and dancing in the Ertegun Atrium and skylined Appel Room follow the one-night-only benefit concert.
Pricing for a limited number of concert-only tickets range from $150 to $200. Gala tickets begin at $1,500.
Although Bennett performed various genres of music, the man Frank Sinatra called “the best singer in the business” lived and breathed jazz music until the very end.
Bennett, who died in July 2023 at the age of 96, likened himself as an interpreter of “the great American songbook” instead of a jazz singer, though he did cite late jazz piano master Art Tatum as one of his biggest influences.
Early in his career, the Queens native recorded with Count Basie, Art Blakey, and Nat Adderley before forming his own jazz label imprint, Improv — releasing the critically acclaimed albums “Life Is Beautiful” and “Together Again” in the mid-1970s.
In 2022, the velvet-voiced “son of Astoria” won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album for his 61st and final studio opus, “Love for Sale,” his second duet project with fellow New Yorker Lady Gaga.
