Lady Gaga sheds quirky image for jazz album

The pop diva put aside her wacky image to sing sweet harmonies with Tony Bennett, the elder statesman of cool.

Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, bridging a 60-year age gap to form one of musics unlikeliest pairs, launched a jazz album on Monday that lets the pop diva put aside her wacky image to sing sweet harmonies with the elder statesman of cool.

Cheek to Cheek, on sale on Tuesday after a launch concert in the ornate Renaissance setting of the Grand-Place in Brussels, features jazz standards by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and others a distant world away from Lady Gagas 21st century.

When I began writing music for the music industry, I became known as the quirky girl from downtown New York, she told a news conference at the 15th-century city hall.

So I tailored my music to be that way, to get noticed, to be able to travel more and play more shows, said the 28-year-old artist known to many as much for startling costumes like a robe made of meat as for her innovative music and stage shows.

But swathed in blue velvet with a 2-metre (6-foot) train, Lady Gaga this week was more 1950s Hollywood star than queen of MTV in 2014 although still easily young enough to be Bennetts grand-daughter.

I feel liberated, she said, holding the hand of her fellow Italian-American New Yorker and musing on the challenges of old-style jazz. Its been over eight years and Ive not been singing out. But Tony will not accept any less than all of me.

The two first met in 2011 at a charity concert in New York and a short time afterwards, recorded a version of The Lady is a Tramp for Bennetts album Duets II.

I was overjoyed that he had heard that Id been singing jazz for so long, perhaps I was even afraid that I had lost that part of me, Lady Gaga said.

Bennett, who shot to fame with Because of You in 1951, said he enjoyed the simplicity of a jazz setting.

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Lady Gaga sheds quirky image for jazz album