How Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga got a special kick out of each other

nypost.com:

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga certainly appeared like the oddest of couples.That was most definitely the case when the “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” crooner paired up with the shock diva — who sang “He ate my heart” on 2009’s “Monster” — for their first collaborative album, 2014’s “Cheek to Cheek.”The two had previously worked together, on his 2011 “Duets II” LP, playfully partnering on “The Lady Is a Tramp,” the same year that Mother Monster had gone full-on zombie in her “Born This Way” video.That was about as far as you could get from Bennett’s classy, debonair style.

I mean, did you ever see the man not in a perfectly tailored suit?Indeed, about the only thing that Bennett — who died at 96 on Friday after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease — seemed to have in common with the nearly 60-years-younger Gaga was that they were both native New Yorkers.But after Gaga’s career took its first hit with the relative flop — by her standards — of 2013’s “Artpop,” the singer needed to wipe away the artifice and remind the world about the talent underneath the skull makeup.And “Cheek to Cheek” — featuring jazz standards by the likes of George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Jerome Kern — was a cred-boosting affair that proved that, at that moment, it was Gaga who needed Bennett more than the other way around.It went on to win a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album in 2015, when there seemed to be absolutely nothing “traditional” about Gaga.If there was an award for Cutest Couple On The Red Carpet at the 2015 Grammys, they would have won that too.And when they performed Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek,” you could just feel the love between them.“It was magic, because there was such an obvious affection both ways,” longtime.