It’s a hot August mid-morning in Manhattan, and Danny Bennett is zooming along. He’s been moving at top speed pretty much all the time ever since taking on the business of being his father Tony Bennett’s manager in 1986: first reuniting Tony with his former label (Columbia), his onetime pianist (Ralph Sharon), and the charts (The Art of Excellence was Bennett’s first album to reach the charts since 1972), then turning him into an elder statesman of cool in the ’90s with appearances on Letterman, MTV, and alterna-rock radio concerts (“in between PJ Harvey and Nine Inch Nails,” Danny recalls).
Following his wildly popular MTV showcase of 1994 (whose recorded version won a Grammy for Album of the Year), Danny’s managerial savvy steered Tony toward fellow hip, becoming the oldest person to reach No. 1 on the album chart at 88 years and 69 days old. To quote the man himself, “When others zig, I zag.”
