Lady Gaga Goes Cheek To Cheek With Tony Bennett for His Birthday and New Album; Lady Gaga Tony Bennett Collaboration a Long Time Coming

Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett are the newest celebrity duo. The pair are not only putting out a new record together, they have become fast friends since they first met years ago.

Lady Gaga took to the sky and to Twitter for celebrate Tony Bennett's 88th birthday this past Sunday. The "Born This Way Singer" hired a plane to stream the banner: "Happy Birthday Tony [heart] Gaga."

Lady Gaga then took to Twitter to thank the jazz legend, tweeting "For the best ... Singing together has changed my life. Let's trend it worldwide so I can tell him! #HappyBirthdayTonyBennett I love you baby you're the best!."

Tony Bennett tweeted back, "Dear Lady, you said there will always be flowers but this is ridiculous! Best birthday ever."

Gaga and Bennett have spent the past two years locked in a recording studio for an album of jazz standards "Cheek to Cheek" that will be released Sept. 23. Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga first teamed up in 2011, when Gaga put her stamp on the songs "The Lady Is a Tramp" for Bennett's Duets II album.

While taping a performance at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City for PBS, which will air in the fall, Lady Gaga talked about meeting the legendary crooner "I fixed my hair, and my mom was fixing her makeup, and then we went back to meet him. 'Do you want to do a jazz album together?' And I said, 'Yes, of course I do!' "

"You know, it's funny, but jazz comes a little more comfortable for me than pop music, than R&B music," Gaga said in a recent interview. "I've sung jazz since I was 13 years old, which is kind of like my little secret that Tony found out. So this is almost easier for me than anything else."

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Lady Gaga remembered she first met Tony Bennett after she'd performed a a cover of Nat King Cole's "Orange Colored Sky"at the Robin Hood Foundation benefit gala in New York City in 2011.

"He heard me sing that song, and he asked to meet me," she told Rolling Stone. "I said, 'Oh, my gosh, Tony Bennett's here.' And I was so nervous. I fixed my hair, and my mom was fixing her makeup. We went back to meet him, and he said, 'Do you want to do a jazz album together?' I said, 'Yes, of course I do.' And we were fast friends and friends ever since."

Speaking to Rolling Stone following the Gaga Bennett "The Lady Is a Tramp" duet in 2011, Bennett gushed "She's as good as Ella Fitzgerald,"

Bennett and Gaga started planning their duet album sometime around September 2012. The hit the studios in the spring of 2013 even though Gaga was still recovering from a hip injury that sidelined a major tour.

Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, who have 22 Grammys between them, recently put their first song, a duet on the Cole Porter song "Anything Goes," out on iTunes.

Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett's "Cheek to Cheek" will include such jazz standards including "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady,"  "Lush Life," Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life."