Tony Bennett & k.d. lang ~ A Wonderful World

The pair kick proceedings off with a playful, irony-free "Exactly Like You," then perform a tender vocal waltz across both the ages and the masterful, sympathetic orchestrations of the late Peter Matz, one of Bennett's longtime collaborators. But it's on the more melancholy performances, like "If We Never Meet Again," "I'm Confessin'," and the Armstrong perennials "Wonderful World" and "Lucky Old Sun," that the pair tap into something akin to timeless musical telepathy. Her own talents hardly in need of burnishing, lang invests the project with some gratifying new smokiness and is rewarded with a postgraduate course in saloon singing for the ages. It's an album that begs the best kind of question: When do we get an encore?

1 Exactly Like You

2 La Vie En Rose

3 I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)

4 You Can Depend On Me

5 What a Wonderful World

6 That's My Home

7 A Kiss to Build a Dream On

8 I Wonder

9 Dream a Little Dream of Me

10 You Can't Lose A Broken Heart

11 That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day)

12 If We Never Meet Again