Tony Bennett gives museum painting of jazz great

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Tony Bennett gives museum painting of jazz great WASHINGTON (AP) — Singer Tony Bennett is donating a watercolor he made of jazz great Duke Ellington to a Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C.

Bennett said Wednesday that the painting was inspired by his longtime friendship with Ellington.

The painting depicts Ellington with a bouquet of pink roses in the background. The jazz musician made a habit of sending Bennett a dozen roses every time Ellington composed a new song.

The 82-year-old Bennett says he has been a lifelong painter. He says painting always keeps him in a "creative zone" if he gets tired of singing.

This is the third painting he has donated to the Smithsonian.

The National Portrait Gallery is adding the new painting to its halls on the 110th anniversary of Ellington's birth.

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Singer Tony Bennett is also an artist and, for the most part, a not-so-bad one at that. Except perhaps for his latest creation, a watercolor he made of Ellington that was inspired by their long friendship. Bennett gave the painting to The National Portrait Gallery Wednesday for the 110th anniversary of jazz great Duke Ellington's birth.

In it, D.C.'s celebrated jazz great is surrounded by a sea of pink roses. Bennett explained that every time Ellington wrote a new song for Bennett to sing, he'd send him a dozen roses, the Washington Examiner reported.

"When the dozen roses would arrive, I'd say, 'Duke wrote another song,'" recalled the award-winning crooner who paints under the name Benedetto.

A self-described "museum freak," Bennett said it was Ellington who inspired him to start painting. "'Do two things; don't do one,'" Bennett recalls Ellington telling him.

The 82-year-old said that advice "changed my whole life for the better" and whenever he gets tired of singing, painting keeps him in a "creative zone."

But what would Duke say now? QC