By Marilyn Lester***Triple threat Tony Yazbeck has, in past appearances at 54 Below, been celebrating iconic show business greats, such as Fred Astaire, who’ve informed his own career trajectory . At this two-night outing at the club, his show, Tony Yazbeck Celebrates Tony Bennett: 
The Very Thought of You, paid homage to a legend whose career spanned over eight decades. Considering that Bennett, like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, recorded probably every American Songbook tune ever written, making a set list no doubt fell acutely into the realm of personal favorites, related both to Bennett and Yazbeck’s own stage experience. The result was a delightful musical smorgasbord of numbers guaranteed to entertain to the max. And that it did; like Bennett, Yazbeck is an artist so at home on a stage that it would be difficult to imagine their lives anywhere else.
Opener was a spirited “On the Sunny Side of the Street” (Jimmy McHugh, Dorothy Fields), more a dance number with song—a dynamic that ran through the evening. Although Bennett wasn’t a dancer, his uncle Dick was a vaudville tapper—good enough. But tapping is Yazbeck’s strong suit (he began learning the craft at age four and earned a Tony Award® nomination for his song and dance turn in On The Town). The inclusion of dance throughout the evening made quite a few songs into production numbers in their own right, such as the 
Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, “My Favorite Things.” And there wasn’t just athletic Broadway tap, but, with an artful change of dance shoes on stage (and back again) there came a soft shoe (on salt, not sand!) to Ray Noble’s “The Very Thought of You.”
As an accomplished Broadway veteran, Yazbeck’s main orientation in song delivery isn’t in the realm of jazz. Yet, Bennett leaned more toward that genre than any other (he was influenced by Louis Armstrong, mentored by Duke Ellington and named an NEA Jazz Master). While the overall style of Yazbeck’s delivery was in Broadway/pop mode, quite a few numbers featured phrasing that bordered on jazz: “The Way You Look Tonight” (Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields) and notably evident on “My Favorite Things” (which became a signature song for jazz legend John Coltrane). More evident, though, was Yazbeck’s heavy lean into the drama of singing, in which he applied acting beyond standard interpretation. An effective a cappella beginning to “Autumn Leaves” led into a contemplative story song; closer, “Some Other Time” from On the Town (Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green), referenced the recording collaboration of Bennett with jazz pianist Bill Evans and captured the evocative mood of the number perfectly.
Threaded through Yazbeck’s organic narrative was the notion that artists stand on the shoulders of those who came before, plus the importance of mentoring and supporting youth. Among the examples cited was Bennett’s founding of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, the borough of his birth. Walking the talk, Yazbeck’s special guest was twenty-something vocalist-violinist Mae Roney, with whom he sang delightful harmonies and trade-offs on “Moonglow” (Will Hudson, Eddie DeLange) and in tribuet to Bennett’s duet series, Hank Williams’ “Cold Cold Heart,” sung by Bennett with KD Lang. Roney was introduced to Yazbeck via his long-time music director-pianist Jerome Korman. Beside being an absolute genius arranger and master of the keys, the occasional banter and chemistry between the two was as sweet to experience as it was revelatory in informing this thoroughly entertaining show.
By the conclusion of Tony Yazbeck Celebrates Tony Bennett: The Very Thought of You, there was a light bulb moment: with such a big spotlight on dance in this set, coupled with Yabeck;s athletic style of tap, there has to be a tribute to the great Gene Kelly somewhere in the works. Perhaps next time on the 54 Below stage?
