I love Tony Bennett’s musicianship, and he’s always seemed to be a real gentleman. Maybe he got up on the wrong side of bed, or maybe he’s becoming a grumpy old crooner. He recently slammed America for its lack of culture.
Legendary singer TONY BENNETT has slammed his home country of America for not contributing anything other than jazz music to world art and culture. The IF I RULED THE WORLD crooner feels that Europe and Asia offer far more culturally than America does. Bennett says, “I have travelled around the world to Asia and Europe. They show you what they have contributed to the world. The British show you theatre, the Italians show you music and art, the French show you cooking and painting, and the Germans show you science. “The only thing that the United States, which is still a young country, has contributed culturally to the world is jazz – elongated improvisation. It’s tragic.” And Bennett feels that Americans don’t even appreciate the impact of jazz in popular culture. He says, “Fifty years from now people will be bowing to DIZZY GILLESPIE and CHARLIE PARKER, just like impressionist painters like MONET, who were starving in their day. The Americans don’t even know what they have come up with.”
Not so fast, Tony. I know it’s tre chic to consider European culture “superior” to American. And just turning on the TV is good cause for despair. But let’s look at Bennett’s points one at a time:
The U.S. is a young country. Our history goes back barely 500 years, and only about half of that as an independent country. But our roots go back to… Europe. Arguably we’re an extension (and, I’d argue, largely an improvement) of European culture.
Just Jazz? I’m a little amazed that he dismisses it as mere “extended improvisation”. I had the great privilege of attending a Dave Brubeck concert last weekend. Jeff Mock called Time Out “the high point of western civilization”, and I agree. It’s inspiring to find Brubeck and friends still at the top of their game at the age of 86. After ripping my guts out with a painfully beautiful, longing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Brubeck masterfully improvised a piano intro which reached deep into my brain and teasingly prodded my memory. “Wait. Do I recognize that? Yes, I do, I think. It’s…” And just at the precise moment that I (and everybody else) thought “Oh! It’s Take Five!” he broke into that famous 5/4 vamp and brought the house down.
For my money, if that’s “all” American culture has produced, it’s been five centuries well spent.
I cheerfully give the Italians their due for the gift of music as we know it. Europe gave us Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and on and on. But has Tony Bennet never sung Gershwin? Even in explosively creative periods, just how often did towering geniuses appear in Europe? For that matter, what great new cultural contributions have Europe and China made in, say, the last couple of hundred years?
Don’t forget movies. There’s an American contribution. And before you snicker about the lack of “culture” in American movies, and the vaunted superiority of “foreign films”, remember Sturgeon’s Law: “Ninety percent of anything is crap.” Same goes for music. Classics are classics because they float to the top and are worth remembering. Sit down and make a list of classic movies. It won’t be hard. And many will be American.
Tony’s lament about artists being unappreciated in their time is understandable – and ironic. The example he chose? France.
Get a good nap, Tony. Wake up on the right side of bed, and count your blessings.
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