| Together Again | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1977 | |||
| Recorded | September 27–30, 1976 | |||
| Studio | Columbia (San Francisco, California) | |||
| Genre | Vocal jazz | |||
| Length | 35:05 | |||
| Label | Improv Records Improv 7117 | |||
| Producer |
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| Tony Bennett chronology | ||||
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| Bill Evans chronology | ||||
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Together Again is a 1977 studio album by singerTony Bennett andjazz pianistBill Evans. It was originally issued on Bennett's own Improv Records label, which went out of business later that year, but was subsequently reissued onConcord.
Their first album together,The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album, had been released byFantasy Records in 1975. Both albums plus alternate takes and additional tracks were later released asThe Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings by Fantasy in 2009.
On November 8, 2011,Sony Music Distribution included the CD in a box set entitledThe Complete Collection.[1]
The album opens with a brief solo by Evans onDavid Raksin's theme "The Bad and the Beautiful" from thefilm of that title.
As with the previous collaboration, this one features a song byLeonard Bernstein, "Lucky to Be Me," that Evans had previously recorded solo for the albumEverybody Digs Bill Evans (1958). He had also previously recorded a vocal version of it withMonica Zetterlund in 1964. And as with its predecessor, it contains one Evans original, in this case, "The Two Lonely People," which Evans had first presented onThe Bill Evans Album (1971), although earlier live recordings of it were later issued.[2]
There are also performances of what were quickly becoming important modern jazz standards, "A Child Is Born" byThad Jones, which Evans had recorded with a quintet just a few months earlier for the albumQuintessence, andMichel Legrand's "You Must Believe in Spring," which would later be featured as the title track ofone of Evans's most acclaimed trio albums.
Bennett had made the original recording of the song "Maybe September" back in 1966 forThe Movie Song Album.[3] The new collaboration was rounded out by four otherjazz standards.
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [4] |
| The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings | [5] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [6] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [7] |
TheAllMusic reviewer William Ruhlman wrote, "If anything, Evans dominates this encounter more than he did the first, but it's still a good showcase for Bennett, too."[4] Evans biographer Peter Pettinger said, "the two artists produced a recording at least as relaxed and mutually in tune as their first" and singled out the "hushed rendering of one of Michel Legrand's finest songs, 'You Must Believe in Spring.'"[8]
Bonus tracks on CD reissue:
