Recently in Frank’s World Category

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

One thing about Frank Sinatra: he was not shy about letting people know what musicians and singers he admired (read a past post on Sinatra and Lester Young here). Probably the artist he complimented most, including Lady Day, was Ella Fitzgerald.

Ella Fitzgerald and Sinatra came up together during the big band era. They were both popular with the public during this time and were admired by other singers and musicians for having perfect pitch. They grew up in tough yet somewhat isolated neighborhoods outside New York City and were misfits in different ways, which ended up carrying through in their music.

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

When I was a kid, my first exposure to Sinatra probably came from old Warner Bros. cartoons like this one.

This chicken-crazed cartoon doesn't feature the real voices of Sinatra or Bing Crosby, but it shows you the effect they both had on the ladies (or, at least, the chickens). It also clues you in to their divergent swing-era styles -- Bing's short vocal lines were bubbly and upbeat while Sinatra was brooding, with longggggg, smooth phrases that held back languorously behind the beat.

People literally didn't know how Sinatra could hold notes the way that he did during this Swooner Crooner era. Musicians falsely assumed he found an Eastern swami who taught him the secret art of circular breathing. The truth is that the young, clean-living Sinatra was so dedicated to doing things differently than the reigning vocal star, Crosby, that he actively worked on building his lung capacity and breath control. During an era when exercise was literally considered freakish, the razor-thin Sinatra ran cross-country and swam laps while singing in his head between breaths.

While this isn't my favorite Sinatra period, it does feature the most flat-out beautiful singing of his career. People today often think of his string-laden ballads of this period as slick and "commercial," yet he and arranger Alex Stordahl created a revolutionary sound that nobody else had at the time; it's almost classical chamber music meets jazz. Sinatra also preferred to record older, quality songs by the greatest composers instead of the latest novelty numbers -- he was the first major star to curate what are now called "standards," or the Great American Songbook.

Ballads like "There's No You" helped define the World War II era by speaking of the pain of separation during this time. It is a truly haunting performance.

Unlike Crosby and even Louis Armstrong, Sinatra kept developing and refining his style and sound over the course of his career. The other artist who did this over a similar time frame was Miles Davis -- the two regarded each other's work with the utmost respect.

For more Crosby and bow-tied Sinatra from the razor-thin years, you can listen to my superlative Frank's World Rhapsody Radio Station, which now has "just-click" links for your Facebook and Twitter pages.



    

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe. That universe, of course, includes a galaxy of Dean Martin.

Frank Sinatra could be funny in movies and in the recording studio, but in concert his attempts at humor often came out as mean-spirited. That's because Frank lacked a certain something that his best friend, Dean Martin, had in spades.

Dean Martin was funny. He had such a knack for improvisation and throwaway lines that he didn't even rehearse for his long-running TV show (don't try this one at home, young actors -- Martin was a pro who memorized the scripts). Hey, even Dino's old record sleeves had a sense of fun about them, letting his fans know that he didn't take himself -- or his career -- too seriously.

Take 1957's Pretty Baby (pictured above). This one delineates the entire Dino ethos, minus cocktails. Then, once you uwrap the record, Martin croons romantic ballads such as Rodgers & Hart's "It's Easy to Remember."  For more Martin mythologizing, you can go to this old post I wrote a few years back.

We actually don't have the Pretty Baby album available on Rhapsody at the moment, but I'm working with the good folks at Capitol EMI to change this. That's part of my mission in particular and Rhapsody's mission in general. We aren't happy with having only 150 Dean Martin CDs available to Rhapsody users. We won't rest until they are ALL up (as you can see, we're doing pretty well; most of his Reprise albums are currently on Rhapsody, we just need Capitol to concentrate on putting out the original LPs instead of greatest-hits CDs). We do the heavy lifting so that you don't have to.

For more Martin and Sinatra, you can listen to my superlative Frank's World Rhapsody Radio Station, which now has "just-click" links for your Facebook and Twitter pages.



 
 


 

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

In 1969, the very same year that Woodstock took place, Sinatra hit the charts big with a song called "My Way." Concord Records has released a special 40th anniversary edition of the song's eponymous album.

Here is my Rhapsody album review:

"Unfortunately, the hit single 'My Way' has been interpreted as one of Sinatra's defining personal statements (despite the fact that his work is usually artful and subtle instead of self-aggrandizing). That said, the resulting album is strong, though arranger Don Costa is better on the ballads than the swingers and Sinatra is strong throughout. 'Watch What Happens,' 'Didn't We' and 'For Once in My Life' are all keepers; the stunner is 'All My Tomorrows,' which runs deeper and darker than Sinatra's previous Capitol recording. You may want to skip the run-through of The Graduate's 'Mrs. Robinson,' though it's worth hearing him ad-lib the line 'fooling with that young stuff like you do.' This anniversary edition adds two bonus tracks."

With my very first Frank's World post I inadvertently raised the ire of many a Sinatra fan by noting that I don't really feel the need to hear the song "My Way" again. While Sinatra was very happy to have an era-defining hit in the Age of Aquarius, he is described in Chuck Granata's fine book Sessions With Sinatra as always having reservations about the tune. Even if he wasn't too crazy about the number himself, he took the time to weave a solid album around it.

You can listen to every single album that Sinatra cut for RCA, Columbia, Capitol and Reprise Records during his decades-long recording career on Rhapsody. And you can also listen to all of these songs and more on my superlative Frank's World Rhapsody Radio Station, which now has "just-click" links for your Facebook and Twitter pages.
   

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

Frank Sinatra blazed a lot of trails in his career, including being the first star to break away from the majors and start his own label, Reprise Records.

At heart, Sinatra was a keen listener who was obsessed with music -- all kinds of music. In Will Friedwald's definitive Sinatra! The Song Is You, jazz and classical musicians recall looking at Sinatra's vast record collection and talking with him about big band recordings, jazz cuts and modern symphonic music.

With Reprise Records, Sinatra got to record not only friends like Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., but also jazz artists such as Duke Ellington and Shorty Rogers. As a matter of fact, the very first Reprise release was The Warm Moods by Ben Webster, the saxophone giant who more than earned his status as King of the Tenors. Webster even played on a Sinatra date, getting some solo space on the classic "I'm Beginning to See the Light."    

Though Reprise Records is still with us, Sinatra only ran the label for a few years before it was bought out by a larger concern. Since Rhapsody is such an easy portal to music discovery, it's a snap to click on the playlist below and catch the initial blast of music that Sinatra put out on Reprise.

Play Sinatra & Friends Start Reprise Records
 

You can also listen to all of these songs and more on my superlative Frank's World Rhapsody Radio Station, which now has "just-click" links for your Facebook and Twitter pages.
 


 

At Rhapsody, we love Frank Sinatra. We have every official album Sinatra ever recorded in one easy-to-find place, as well as the Frank’s World radio station and a series of blog posts that deal exclusively with the man. So, yes, we have a passion for Old Blue Eyes and his music.

So when the news went out that Martin Scorsese was planning a biopic of Frank Sinatra, it was met with both relief and anxiety. Relief because Scorsese is a brilliant director who has shown a rare ability to artfully use popular music in his movies. Anxiety because Marty could knock out the music and just make the movie about (overblown) mob connections, the vocalist's alcohol-fueled altercations and his endless list of celebrity girlfriends.

It's not that Sinatra’s life story can’t be told -- it's just that if the movie doesn’t actually deal fully with his art, then it doesn't have a reason to exist. It should be about music.

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

There have been some news items up recently about Apollo 11 landing on the moon 40 years ago. Probably not enough headlines -- we could all use some good news right now, even about something that America did four decades ago. We could use some good music now, too. Sinatra fan and all-around man's man Buzz Aldrin played Frank Sinatra and Count Basie's stellar version of "Fly Me to the Moon" on the actual trip to the moon. The Apollo 10 astronauts also played the song when they orbited the moon. Bottom line: astronauts, like jazz musicians, dug Sinatra.

The tune can also serve to show how special Sinatra's knack was for bringing his own style and musicality to his material. The English composer Bart Howard wrote the number in the '50s, and it was recorded by a number of vocalists. Everyone from Nat "King" Cole to Peggy Lee, Bobby Darin and Annie Ross cut readings of it (here's June Christy's version).

Here's the difference: everyone before Sinatra's definitive recording sang the tune the way the composer conceived it -- as a very sincere and kind of drippy love song. On the surface, Sinatra changed the ballad into a romantic swinger. But, he also changed the entire approach of the lyrics and the entire feel of the song.

Everybody else sang "Fly Me to the Moon" like it was about the dreamy way you feel when you're really falling in love. With Sinatra, the song becomes about the ridiculously great way you feel when you fall for somebody -- it's so good, in fact, that maybe it's not even real. Whatever happens, enjoy the ride while it lasts -- which in this case is 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

And Sinatra is perfectly in synch with Quincy Jones' sublime arrangement and the Basie Band's euphoric playing. Everything comes together on this one. Can you imagine actually flying to the moon while listening to a song that makes you feel like you're flying to the moon?

To listen to these songs and thousands more by Sinatra, Basie, Q and their pals, go directly to Frank's World, my superlative Rhapsody Radio station.  

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

Music critics sometimes debate whether Sinatra was a jazz singer or not, but jazz musicians never seem to care what he was -- they just love the music he made.

Sinatra was the favorite male vocalist of pretty much every jazz artist out there -- Duke Ellington and Count Basie, Miles Davis and Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson and Lester Young (pictured).

Ahhh ... Lester Young.

Here's Young fronting the Oscar Peterson trio on "These Foolish Things."

Young and Sinatra never recorded together, but they adored each other's music. Young called Sinatra his "main man" and would often interpret standards through Sinatra's version of a tune.

For his part, Sinatra studied the sides that Lester cut with Billie Holiday and Count Basie and always said that he took from Lester Young as much as the tenor sax titan took from him.

Joe Lovano, speaking about Sinatra and Young, said, "There's a lot of similarities in the presence, the purity, the way they deliver a tune." Lovano also recorded his own tribute to Sinatra, titled Celebrating Sinatra. Here's Lovano laying out on "This Love of Mine," one of the few standards that Sinatra actually wrote.

Rhapsody has Sinatra fronting a sublime small jazz combo, but almost all of his recordings -- like this recently unearthed reading of Rodgers and Hart's "This Can't Be Love" -- swing with the pulse of jazz. To listen to more Sinatra, Lester & Lovano, go directly to Frank's World, my superlative Rhapsody Radio station. 
 

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

It also looks like I sometimes get to anger some of Frank's legion of fans. When I stated that I preferred the thin, well-coiffed Democratic to the old-fat-bald-Republican I received the following note from a reader:

"I saw Frank live as an fat old bald guy and he was brilliant. I was feeling apolitical at the time so maybe I caught a break."

Now, I was probably too young  to see Sinatra in concert. But this guy tells the truth -- the OldFatBaldGuy could still bring it in concert. I have a mess of official releases and a furlong of bootlegs to prove this. The 1970s, '80s and (especially) the '90s could kind of be heartbreaking for Sinatra. When he was on fire in concert, I wish he would've just run into the studio with a casual jazz combo and cut an album. When his voice is in tatters, it's like watching an aging Muhammed Ali try and hold it together in the ring (and that's if Ali was smoking and drinking and staying up all night and then dragging himself to the ring to box all over again). But, overall, Sinatra was a masterful performer.

If you want a fantastic example of the Old Man giving his all on the stage, try Concord's recent concert release, Live at the Meadowlands. This 1986 show proves that Sinatra was still a major contender and was basically in the same place that acts like the Rolling Stones and the Who and U2 are in now: making so much dough and pleasing so many people when they go out on tour that they're not too worried about what they do in the studio (U2, for example, now records new material about as often as Sinatra did when he was well into his 70s!).

If you want proof that Frank the Human could still battle with Sinatra the Legend, just try these awesome concert versions of "Mack the Knife" and "The Gal That Got Away." "Mack" is looser than his studio reading, and "Got Away" is more powerful than his old Capitol reading from his 1950s prime (I swear on a stack of old Billie Holiday records) .

I just wish he went into the studio more when he was on fire like this.

 

Welcome back to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

Sinatra was in the middle of a protractive career nosedive when he started recording for the artist-owned indie Capitol Records in 1953. His first single for the label did O.K. but it failed to dazzle. It was his second Capitol single, "I've Got the World on a String," that truly gave him a new voice, a new sound and a new attitude.

The new voice came from the fact that an overbooked Sinatra sang so much that he hemorrhaged from the throat (I'd like to see Celine Dion try that. Really, I would) and lost his voice for awhile. When he got it back it sounded rougher, deeper and darker.

The new sound came with help from the great arranger Nelson Riddle (more on him in a later post).

Sinatra was also now hitting up rhythm tunes as often as ballads. "String," a wonderful Harold Arlen song, was recorded a few times before Sinatra covered it, most notably by Louis Armstrong.

To listen to Frank's early Capitol singles, check out This Is Sinatra!, which has just been reissued in the digital age for the first time. Or, better yet, check out literally thousands of songs by Sinatra and his friends on Frank's World, my superlative Rhapsody Radio station. 

 

  

Welcome to Frank's World, where I get to bore complete strangers by waxing rhapsodic about the vast Sinatra universe.

That means you'll get to hear acres of superalitve tunes and dig into the work of some of Frank's favorite vocalists, songwriters and jazz musicians.

And, just so you don't confuse me with the great, sadly departed Bruno Kirby in Spinal Tap, I can say negative things about Sinatra, too.

For instance, like my mother, I prefer the skinny Democrat to the fat, bald Republican. 

Also, I can safely live another 1,000 years and never hear either "Strangers in the Night" or "My Way" again.

But take "Strangers." At least Sinatra built a nifty little jazz album around what was just a cheesy hit. Here's my Rhapsody album review of Strangers in the Night:

The title track was an era-defining description of how the sexual revolution was actually started by confused, recently divorced parents rather than their hippie offspring. Sinatra tired of the tune quickly, so he grabbed Nelson Riddle and built a quality album around the hit. Here, Riddle and Sinatra are in Count Basie mode, with a jazzy organ fronting a sleek big band. "Summer Wind" and "All or Nothing At All" are heralded classics, though the wondrous "On a Clear Day" may be the single most underrated tune in the entire Sinatra songbook.

"On A Clear Day (You Can See Forever)" clues you in to the fact that adults were taking their shoes off, walking on the grass (and perhaps smoking it too) way before rock music came of age or the hippies showed up and stopped taking showers.

The tension created by Sinatra's voice and the band in this one is incredible.

It reminds me of the dreamy way that Count Basie handled a ballad like "Li'l' Darlin'." "Summer Wind" takes this approach, too. Sinatra was always listening and learning even as he was loving and losing. 

To listen to these Sinatra songs and literally thousands more like them check out my Rhapsody radio station Frank's World.