Tony Bennett on Holiday
For those of us who have long loved Tony Bennett, the singer's new album,  "Tony Bennett on Holiday: A Tribute to Billie Holiday," is a sad affair. The 70-year-old  crooner's voice now creaks where it once glided; it misses notes it once nailed to the wall.  On this outing, his high spirits are as contagious as ever, but his elegant musicality is  gone. Even in Bennett's best years, a tribute to Holiday would have been a dubious  proposition, for it's hard to imagine two more different singers. He's a brassy bugle call  of ringing declarations; she was a muted trumpet solo of sighs, hints, and whispers. This is  especially obvious on the album's version of "God Bless the Child," which electronically  combines Holiday's original track with Bennett's new one to create one of those hokey  timewarp duets with the dead. But even on the 18 other songs associated with Holiday,  one can hear how ill-suited Bennett's maximalism is for Holiday's minimalist  arrangements. Even if he could still hit all the notes.--Geoffrey Himes