ENTERTAINMENT: Bennett still has it at 82

  Tony Bennett is 82, the same age his friend Frank Sinatra was when he died. Sinatra’s last performance in Las Vegas came five years before his death. By then, audiences had spent several years holding their collective breath for him, forgiving his lapses in vocal power and hoping he would remember all the words to his classic songs.
  On Saturday at the Las Vegas Hilton, Bennett’s audience let out a collective cheer during the second song, “They All Laughed,” as the singer did a full-circle twirl. Later in the show he gave them an even longer dance shuffle during “The Shadow Of Your Smile.”
  Perhaps this is a begrudging admission that years of playing tennis are better for you in the long run than Jack Daniels and cigarettes.
  The important thing is that Bennett is in full control of his talent, putting audiences at ease and making them quickly forget his age. He sang in front of only a four-piece quartet, which laid his voice bare to expose any flaws but also kept him from having to push it above the volume of a larger ensemble. (His voice actually sounds more challenged on his upcoming Christmas album with the Count Basie big band than it did at the Hilton.)
  The only thing that seems to have changed is that he did not cast aside the microphone this time to sing “Fly Me To The Moon” a capella as he has in recent years. But he did sing it accompanied only by guitar.
  The only thing approaching grumbles — and the only time anyone had to remind anyone else, “Hey, he’s 82” — came at the end. Bennett took a bow with his daughter Antonia, who opened the show with three songs, but he did not sing an encore. I think it’s because he wanted the last line of the last song to be the one people walked out remembering. The song was “How Do You Keep The Music Playing?” and the last line is, “With any luck I suppose, the music never ends.”