Love for Sale Review

Knowing what was happening while these takes were made changes how they sound, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. Bennett's phrasing is slower and more fragile than on their first record, and on I Get a Kick Out of You and It's De Lovely he is unmistakably still there, riding the band with instincts that outlasted almost everything else. Gaga carries more of the load this time and does it with real tenderness, backing off when he needs room and taking the harder keys herself.

Night and Day swings properly. Do I Love You is the loveliest performance on it. The material is Porter, which means the writing is as good as popular song has ever been, witty and cruel and easy in the mouth. The band remains conservative and the production values polish over risk. Taken purely as jazz it is fine. Taken as what it is, an artist saying goodbye to his student on tape, it is genuinely affecting.