CHUCK Berry has played the York Barbican. Tom Jones, Van Morrison, Morrissey, Elvis Costello, too. Yet has there ever been a bigger name to grace that stage than the American crooner Tony Bennett?

Grace is the right word in every way. Bennett is an old-school singer, as immaculate in his blue shirt, tie and cream jacket as he is in his phrasing, as he glided from song to song in a set perfectly judged for a relaxed Sunday night.

His band, the Tony Bennett Quartet, stretched their limbs over four numbers that showcased the piano prowess of Mike Renzi, the exquisite guitar playing of Gray Sargent, the double bass ballast of Marshall Wood and the ageless drumming of Harold Jones, whose skills Count Basie rated the best in the jazz business.

Then a voice crackled through an old recording, one Frank Sinatra talking of the "cat" as he introduced "the greatest singer in the world". It was the cue for Tony Bennett to make his grand entry, arms lifted in appreciation of the applause from enthusiasts not restricted to those of the third age. Bennett's brace of Duets albums, featuring the likes of Bono, Sting, Amy Winehouse and Michael Buble, has seen his music permeate a new age; his imminent collaboration of jazz standards with Lady Gaga, Cheek To Cheek, will do so even more.

For all those fashionable accessories in the recording studio, Bennett is best experienced neat, that voice alone, no backing singers, just Tony and his supreme jazzmen, who each took their turns in the spotlight, especially Sargent, stood side by side in tandem with Bennett's sublime timing on several occasions.

There is nothing flash about Tony Bennett's singing; it is mellifluous, dramatic, sensual, serious, playful and strong. Its potency is undiminished at the age of 88 – you read that age correctly – and such is his impeccable vocal style that he knows where to show restraint and where to let fly, as he did on One More For The Road. Glass in hand, he was every man in the audience at that moment, in his element before the call home.

The highlights were too many to name, but let's pick a few at random: Maybe This Time; Hank Williams's Cold Cold Heart; his first ever recording, Boulevard Of Broken Dreams; Stevie Wonder's For Once In My Life, turned into a reflective ballad. He picked an George and Ira Gershwin number for its renewed topicality in this American age of division, telling an anecdote of why he preferred singing the old songs. "Because I don't like the new ones," he said.

He made you smile benignly as he sang Charlie Chaplin's Smile as Chaplin would have wished it; kept you smiling in When You're Smiling; then recalled his past visits to Britain – "what a beautiful country you have," he said – before taking the breath away with his closing Fly Me To The Moon. He sung without a microphone, as clear as the night air he was to slip way into at 9.30, after 75 vintage minutes of pure class. Like Elvis, he didn't do an encore. None was necessary.

 

• TONY Bennett took the chance to slip in a plug for his new album with Lady Gaga at Sunday’s concert at York Barbican.

“I’d like you to buy it... because she needs the money,” said the 88-year-old Italian-American crooner, in typically smooth mode.

Their Cheek To Cheek collaboration will be released on September 22 with its combination of duets and solo performances of jazz standards by an outwardly unlikely couple whose age gap is six decades.

Anthony Dominick Benedetto and Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, alias Bennett and Lady G, had previously recorded The Lady Is A Tramp for Bennett’s Duets II album back in 2011.

Among their new duets are But Beautiful, I Won’t Dance, Anything Goes, I Can’t Give You Anything But My Love and the title track, while Lady Gaga’s solo version of Lush Life draws a response from the solo Bennett in Sophisticated Lady.

“I loved making Lush Life; Tony mentored me emotionally through the process,” says Lady Gaga.

“I sang Sophisticated Lady to answer her on Lush Life, and because Duke Ellington wrote it, who collaborated with Billy Strayhorn, the writer of Lush Life,” reveals Bennett.

Cheek To Cheek took over a year to complete at recording sessions in New York City with jazz musicians associated with both artists.

Bennett’s regular quartet of pianist Mike Renzi, guitarist Gray Sargent, drummer Harold Jones and double bass player Marshall Wood are joined on the credits by pianist Tom Ranier and jazz trumpeter Brian Newman, a long-time friend and colleague of Lady Gaga, who plays on the record alongside his New York jazz quintet. Tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, trumpeter George Rabbai and the late flautist Paul Horn, who passed away in July, all make appearances too.

“What I really love about being a jazz singer is that jazz artists are very creative, very honest, from phrase to phrase,” says Bennett, whose partner in jazz concurs with that assertion. “We wanted to make something that sounded perfect because of the quality of the emotion… the honesty,” says Lady G.

Cheek To Cheek will be available in an 11-track standard version, whose other tracks are Nature Boy, Firefly, Let’s Face The Music And Dance and It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing), plus the iTunes exclusive track Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down). An 18-track deluxe version additionally features Don’t Wait Too Long; Goody Goody; Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye; They All Laughed; On A Clear Day (You Can See Forever); Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered and The Lady Is A Tramp. The covers for both versions have been shot by fashion photographer Steven Klein.

And should you be wondering, alas Lady Gaga did not make a cameo appearance at Bennett’s Barbican show.