Music helping Tony Bennett live with Alzheimer's disease

Singer Tony Bennett has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease but the diagnosis hasn't quieted his legendary voice. Photo / AP

Tony Bennett has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease but it hasn't quieted his legendary voice.

The singer's wife and son reveal in the latest edition of AARP The Magazine that Bennett was first diagnosed with the irreversible neurological disorder in 2016. The magazine says he endures "increasingly rarer moments of clarity and awareness".

Still, he continues to rehearse and twice a week goes through his 90-minute set with his longtime pianist, Lee Musiker. The magazine says he sings with perfect pitch and apparent ease.

A beloved interpreter of American standards, Bennett's chart-topping career spans seven decades. "He's not the old Tony anymore," his wife, Susan, told the magazine. "But when he sings, he's the old Tony."

Bennett, 94, gained his first pop success in the early 1950s and enjoyed a career revival in the 1990s and became popular with younger audiences in part because of an appearance on "MTV Unplugged".

He continued recording and touring constantly, and his 2014 collaboration with Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga: Cheek to Cheek, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts.

Susan told the AARP that her husband had already begun recording a follow-up with Lady Gaga but that she was not sure he would be able to complete the task.

"We'll try," she recalled telling her son. "That's all I can tell you. We'll try."

He also performed a duet with Amy Winehouse, Body and Soul, which was reportedly the last recording she made before her death in 2011.

Bennett has won 19 Grammy Awards over his long career, including a Lifetime Achievement Award, and has sold over 50 million records.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, more than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's dementia and one in 10 people age 65 and older has Alzheimer's dementia.

- Additional reporting, NZ Herald