Frank Friday! Frank Sinatra Sings Rogers and Hart

Review # 49
Artist: Frank Sinatra
Title: Frank Sinatra Sings Rogers and Hart
Format: LP
Label: Capitol
Year: 1962
Songs: 12






I've liked Frank Sinatra for a long, long time. But it wasn't until my great uncle and aunt had both died, roughly ten years ago now, that I started buying his records. My Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim were both near and dear to me, and both big Sinatra fans. I remember hearing Sinatra playing at their house from back when I was a little kid, especially at Christmas time. They saw Sinatra in concert more than once. The organist even played "My Way" at my uncle's funeral. After they were gone, I started buying Sinatra LPs. I'm not sure exactly why it was, but it made me feel closer to them. And it made music I already liked feel more special. Over the years, I have developed a relationship with Sinatra's music independent of my memories of Mary and Jim, but I still think of them often when I listen to Sinatra. This is where it all started: Frank Sinatra Sings Rogers and Hart was the first Sinatra record I picked up. Not because of the songs on it or anything, but just because it was the first one I saw at a thrift store once I decided to buy some Sinatra records. For a little while, it was the only one I had. I would frequently come home late from punk rock shows, feeling perhaps a bit tipsy, and want some music to listen to that wasn't loud while I made a grilled cheese sandwich or something. So I would often give this record a play. Because this was a common occurrence, and this record had no other Sinatra competition for a time, this is probably the Sinatra record I've played most.

I've got lots of other ones now of course, but this is still one my favorites. This record is the perfect mix of classic Sinatra swing, "The Lady is Tramp" and "Blue Moon" being probably the best known songs on the record, and the more wistful and sentimental Sinatra tunes that always get me. Songs like "Spring is Here," "It Never Entered My Mind," "Glad to Be Unhappy," and "It's Easy to Remember," are perfect for late nights or Sunday mornings when you're feeling a little sad and you want to accept it with some dignity. They aren't songs for being desperate or depressed, they're songs for being sad in the mature way of someone who knows that life has it's ups and downs and sometimes when you're in one of the down periods you've just to accept that it hurts. Frank has a lot of tunes like that, but this record is nice because it mixes them up with some more upbeat numbers as well.You get the ups with the downs.

The funny thing about my love for this record is, a lot of these tunes are from musicals. I mostly hate musicals, and I mostly don't like the music from them. I've always found them unforgivably corny and annoying, which is saying something because I like a lot of corny (and some would say, annoying) stuff. But, you just can't deny that Rogers and Hart wrote some good tunes, and when they're sung by the master vocalist that was Frank Sinatra, they sound good to my ear.

Check out "Spring is Here," one of my favorites from this record.

Total songs listened: 610

Frank Friday! Frank Sinatra: Come Dance With Me

Review #35
Artist: Frank Sinatra
Title: Come Dance With Me
Format: LP
Label: Capitol Records
Songs: 12







For pure fun Sinatra tunes, it's hard to beat Come Dance With Me. This is one of my favorite records to put on when I have people over for dinner. It's upbeat swinging Frank Sinatra in top form. There's not a bad performance on this record (although I'm not terribly fond of "Baubles, Bangles and Beads" as a piece of music), and while I personally am a fan of Frank's more melancholy numbers, this is a great record for entertaining guests because it stays up-tempo all the way through, slowing down only for it's closing tune, "The Last Dance."

The most interesting thing about this record is that it's a bit of a concept album. Most of the songs on the record are about (or at least mention) dancing. In addition to the title track and "The Last Dance" it features, among others, swinging renditions of "Dancing in the Dark," "I Could Have Danced All Night," and of course, "Cheek to Cheek." It's kind of a cool idea and somewhat ahead of it's time to connect the songs on the record thematically like this.

Sinatra's performance is spot on on this record. The man was in many ways in his prime when this recorded, and the vocals have that uniquely Frank-Sinatra-cool attitude that characterizes the best of his swing material. Backing him up are trumpeter Billy May and his orchestra, who collaborated with Sinatra on several other records, some which will appear later on this blog.  May and his band play good, solid swing, which should come as no surprise given that Billy May was part of Glenn Miller's band for a while and also worked with, among others, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nat King Cole. Interestingly, along with other film and television work, Billy May also composed some of the music for the 1960s Batman television show.

This to me isn't Sinatra's most compelling record, but it's definitely one of his most fun.

Come dance with Frank Sinatra.

Total songs listened: 456

Frank Friday! Frank Sinatra and Count Basie: It Might As Well Be Swing

Review # 12
Artist: Frank Sinatra & Count Basie
Title: It Might As Well Be Swing
Format: LP
Label: Reprise
Year: 1964
Songs: 10



This is one of my favorite Frank Sinatra records ever. In fact, as far as the swinging Sinatra material goes, this the absolute best, as far as I'm concerned. Sinatra is teamed up here with one of the true masters of jazz, Count Basie, and his orchestra. The songs are arranged and conducted by another famous name in American music, Quincy Jones. You just can't go wrong with this combination, and this record is practically flawless. Starting with "Fly Me to the Moon," the first song on side A, this record always has me snapping my fingers and singing along. It puts a spring in my step. It makes me want to get dressed up for a night on the town and drink martinis. It just feels cool and classy to listen to this record.

My favorites on this collection are "Fly Me To the Moon," "The Best Is Yet To Come," and Sinatra and Basie's rendition of "Hello, Dolly!" which features lyrics that have been altered to include a loving tribute to Louis Armstrong. There's also the touching "I Wish You Love," a song in which a lover that never was wishes the best for the object of his unrequited love. One of the great things about Sinatra is that, no matter what he's singing, you feel like he means it. Thus, even though this is a mostly upbeat song, it's a little poignant as well, as the protagonist of the lyrics gracefully lets go of the one that got away.

Throughout the record, the band swings in a way that makes you wonder how it is that big bands ever went out of style, and you can feel the energy between them and Sinatra, who, according to the liner notes, shunned the isolation booth usually used by singers so that he could see the band and they could see him. It pays off. The performances are lively and just feel incredibly natural and effortless. The only song on this record I don't dig as much is the closing tune, "Wives and Lovers," which, even for 1964, is just painfully sexist. If you aren't familiar, the song basically tells all the wives listening that they need to make themselves pretty, otherwise their husbands will cheat on them with girls at the office because, well, you know how men are. I don't fool myself to think that Sinatra was a man of enlightened feminist views, but this one just goes too far and frankly (no pun intended) makes me feel a little uncomfortable.

A cool feature of this record is that on the back of the sleeve, there's an interview with Quincy Jones (or "Q" as Sinatra apparently nicknamed him) which offers some interesting insight into the recording process and what it was like to work with Sinatra and Basie.  I particularly liked this quote:

"[Sinatra is] not constricted by the melody as it was written. He bends it so that invariably it fits flawlessly into what's going on in the background. So far as I can put the essence of Frank into words, I'd say that he just makes everything work. He makes everything fit, and that's exactly what happened on these sessions."

I can't disagree.

Fly to the moon with Frank and the Count here.
Total songs listened: 151

Frank Friday! Frank Sinatra: Close Up

Review # 6
Artist: Frank Sinatra
Title: Close Up
Format: LP (X2)
Label: Capitol
Year: 1970
Songs: 20




Welcome to the first "Frank Friday" post, in which I take an opporunity to review some Frank Sinatra and in doing so avoid having to review too many of his records all at once when I get to "S." Close Up is a double LP set that is more or less an extended collection of the greatest hits from the Capitol Records years of Sinatra's career. There's a lot of well known Sinatra recordings here: "From Here to Eternity," "(Love is) The Tender Trap," "Love and Marriage," and many others.  I picked this record up at a library book sale for a buck. Unfortunately, I only inspected one of the records very closely.  Thus, disc one is a bit warped. It only affects the first couple of songs on each side of the disc, but it's a little nauseating to listen to those songs. It doesn't distort the tracks beyond recognition, or even comically, it just makes it sound like Frank and the band are a little drunk.

Most of the songs on these records are the swinging Sinatra stuff. The fun stuff that most people think of when they think of Sinatra, along with some of the well known romantic ones like "Everybody Loves Somebody." These songs are considered by a lot of Sinatra fans to be his best material. Definitely classics, but I tend to prefer the moodier and more introspective songs Sinatra recorded in the 1960s on the Reprise label. That, however, is a different story we'll get into another time. There are some fine tunes on this collection, make no mistake. "Young at Heart," for example, is one of my favorite of the many songs Frank sang during his extensive career. There are also a couple I don't like as well. I've only just recently gotten to where I can listen to "Love and Marriage." For the longest time, I couldn't disassociate it from the show Married with Children, and for that reason it's still not one of my favorites.

A couple of interesting features of this collection: The last three songs all have the word "dream" in the title, and the song that precedes them, "I Believe," also mentions dreams several times in its lyrics. I guess whoever put this collection together wanted to create a theme here. Also, while this isn't that unusual, this record is in "duophonic" sound, which, if I understand correctly, was essentially an attempt make monophonic recordings sound like stereo.  Hard core audiophiles disapprove of this process, and I believe it's not used anymore. I only recently heard about this, so that's interesting to me.

Overall, this is a nice collection of songs, even though many of them appear on other Frank Sinatra recordings in my collection. It also has a cool gatefold cover (which unfortunately has seen much better days) with a bunch of pictures of Frank in the studio inside. Worth a buck, definitely.

Songs listened so far: 81