 Tribute to Sinatra:
Live! at Radio City Music Hall, 1994 Record overview:
This obit & appreciation first appeared in a different (and slightly shorter) form on the late Cinemania Online website. It was written immediately after the singer's death, during an intense 72-hour over the weekend of May 15-17, 1998. During that time, I re-immersed myself in much of the Sinatra music I've loved for so many years, and even re-discovered some things I'd forgotten about. And that was when I got the idea for Franksville...
Live! at Radio City Music Hall, 1994 Record overview:
Live! at Radio City Music Hall, 1994 Record overview:
Live! at Radio City Music Hall, 1994 Record overview:
Live! at Radio City Music Hall, 1994 Record overview:
Live! at Radio City Music Hall, 1994 Record overview:
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By Jim Emerson When the bell finally tolled for Francis Albert Sinatra, it struck my ears as nothing less than a resounding "Ring-A-Ding-Ding!" Sure, it was sobering to realize that the Chairman of the Board had really and truly crapped out at last, cashed in his chips, and headed off for the eternal bar at The Big Casino. (That was Sinatra's phrase; I'm just guessing, but I'll bet there are no $2 tables there -- and that the odds, like the booze and the buffets, are just a little bit better than anything we can get down here in Frank's World.) But for interminable months since his heart attack in 1997 the imminent prospect of his death had loomed ahead as something dire and unavoidable, like "My Way," and arousing in me similar mixed feelings of dread and anticipation. When Sinatra finally died on May 14, 1998, I felt a kind of relief that the proud man's humiliation hadn't dragged on any longer. It seemed less like an occasion to mourn the mortal than to celebrate the immortal. He'd gone out quietly, slipping into the darkness as he did in "Angel Eyes" with a plaintive " 'Scuse me while I disappear....," but at last his music was free to speak for itself. For as long as I can remember, Frank Sinatra has been a fact of life. Only, of course, much bigger. Everything about the legendary Sinatra seemed larger than life — and made out of something more durable and substantial, to boot. And now, the end is no longer near — it's here, and it's history. But since plastic discs are indeed less prone to decay than flesh, the legend survives the man. So, let's hoist a Jack Daniel's (double, on the rocks) to Francis Albert Sinatra, who made this toast way back in 1959: Drink up, all you people -- from "Angel Eyes" Despite all the dizzying ups and downs of his personal and professional life, he was tough, stubborn, and damn near indestructible. In fact, the only force that seemed strong enough to damage or diminish him was his own nasty and fickle temper, which he let loose all too often -- not only in private against his friends and family, but onstage in front of paying audiences, where the target was usually some reporter or some rock music he didn't like. If he was going to use the stage as his bully pulpit, he would have been much wiser to let the songs do the talking -- something he'd always excelled at, anyway. The pettiness and viciousness that sometimes erupted from Sinatra struck me as unworthy of a figure (an artist) of his stature and (musical) eloquence. As a public figure, he reminded me in some ways of John Wayne. Let me explain: I grew up in the '60s and '70s when both of them seemed to be outmoded American archetypes, totems of a corrupt and crumbling Establishment (particularly in their associations with Richard Nixon, whom I despised). More than just hopeless squares, Old Fogies, or even has-beens, they struck me as foul-tempered bullies, bitter about how over-the-hill they obviously were. And while I still don't think that impression was inaccurate (given their public behavior), I had no idea they were also honest-to-god artists of the highest caliber. It wasn't until I went to college and discovered Red River and The Searchers, Songs for Swingin' Lovers! and In the Wee Small Hours, that I fell in love with their work, and learned to separate the art from the men. (I always thought of art as the highest and truest expression of the human soul, so it took me a long time to accept that many -- too many -- artists are assholes, who somehow think their art excuses or redeems their lives. Well, I'm just glad I didn't have to know 'em -- like I'm glad I didn't know Picasso or Peckinpah. These guys may very well deserve to fry in hell for their rotten behavior toward their fellow human beings, but at least we didn't have to deal with 'em; we just get to savor the glimpses of heaven they left behind in their work.) Sinatra sure crammed a lot of livin' into his lifelong term as a Living Legend and Chairman of the Board. Let's see, there were those dizzying career ups and downs, the wives, the affairs, the movie career, the political makeover that turned a Kennedy Democrat into a Reagan Republican. … Where do you even begin to approach a life and legacy of this scale? (And once you get started, how do you ever finish?) It's all been rehashed so many times, anyway: bobbysoxer idol, tempestuous relationship with Ava Gardner, career comeback sparked by winning an Oscar for From Here to Eternity (1955), the Rat Pack, the Vegas shenanigans, marriage to a 21-year old Mia Farrow when he was 50 (I don't want to hear anything more about young women and their "father figures" from Ms. Farrow), the premature retirement, "Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back," "The Main Event" at Madison Square Garden, "The Ultimate Event" tour (with Sammy Davis Jr. and Liza Minnelli -- after Dino dropped out), phoning in Duets… If the most of the music hadn't been so great, it could easily have gotten lost in the clutter. And sometimes maybe it did. So now's a good time to start setting the record(s) straight. Bandleader Artie Shaw (that other famous big-band musician who was married to Ava Gardner) has been credited as the first pop music artist to build a career on quality popular songs of the 20th Century, no matter what their age, rather than whatever flash-in-the-pan novelty happened to be climbing up the Hit Parade that week. Most of the great American standards (by Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Rogers & Hart, Cole Porter) had already been written by the time Sinatra signed as a solo singer with Columbia Records. But Sinatra (and his labels) were less interested in ephemeral hits than in making a long-term investment in great songs sung by a great vocalist with top-notch orchestrations and musicians to back him up. It's an investment that has paid off. Sinatra isn't just the greatest popularizer of the American Popular Songbook -- he helped write that book. No, he wasn't a songwriter, but his taste was essential in shaping and defining the timeless songs we now regard as "standards." Without Sinatra, many of these magnificent tunes (quite a few associated with Broadway stage musicals that flopped and disappeared) would be forgotten today. The bulk of Sinatra's work as a solo recording artist (excluding his formative gigs as featured vocalist with the big bands of Harry James, and then Tommy Dorsey on RCA), can be divided into three parts, roughly corresponding with his long-term contracts at three labels (Columbia, Capitol and Reprise). Each set of records reveals a distinctive stage in his stylistic evolution, and the stylistic influence of the arranger (Axel Stordahl, Nelson Riddle or Gordon Jenkins) with whom he was most closely associated at the time. The Columbia Years (1943-52). The skinny kid with the bow tie who made all the bobbysoxers swoon was known in the '40s simply as "The Voice." And it was some instrument — no cracks, no dings, it gleamed like a brand new Ford and offered the smoothest of rides, thanks to the suspension provided by Axel Stordahl's cushy strings. The best Columbia records (like, say, "Nancy With the Laughing Face" — still the finest of his several versions) are polished to a blinding sheen, although next to Sinatra's mature work, they can sound a little callow and impersonal. Technically, however, The Voice was still pure and pitch-perfect. His trademarks were elongated tones and often-undetectable breathing, a couple of things he picked up from observing trombonist-bandleader Dorsey. All that style was wasted, however, on the ridiculous novelty tunes he claimed Columbia producer Mitch Miller sometimes forced him to cut. Sinatra later re-recorded much of his Columbia catalogue under more artistically congenial conditions at Capitol. It's interesting to compare, for example, his versions of "Saturday Night Is the Loneliest Night of the Week," a perfectly swell 1945 Columbia record featuring a surprisingly swingin' Stordahl arrangement. Stack it next to Billy May's brash and brassy 1959 treatment from Capitol's Come Dance With Me, however, and the earlier track is simply blown off the turntable. It's not just the way the trumpets signal the blast-off, or even May's propulsive tempo (forceful without sounding forced, it's still a lot faster than the nice 'n' easy "heartbeat tempo" Nelson Riddle preferred). The younger Sinatra consistently draws out the word "weeeeek" to the end of the measure, filling up the designated space in a way that seems, in retrospect, not necessarily paint-by-numbers but certainly cautious and conservative. The older Sinatra is more confident and relaxed, clipping the lyrics in a conversational style and freely exploring the spaces around the melody. In a delightful touch, he casually bites off "week," using the percussive snap of the hard "k" as a little rhythm accent. The Capitol Years (1953-62). Sinatra would never again stir the sensational hysteria that made bobbysoxers scream and swoon at the height of '40s "Sinatramania." At Capitol he just made better records. This is Sinatra's vintage period. After two lightly swinging 10-inchers with Nelson Riddle, Songs for Young Lovers and Swing Easy (issued together on one CD), his first full-length album for the label was a gorgeous change of pace: In the Wee Small Hours. It had been six years since his last Columbia single -- something called "The Huckle Buck" that isn't awful (like the infamous Mitch Miller-produced Dagmar duet, "Mama Will Bark") but isn't exactly worthy of an artist of Sinatra's stature, either -- and The Voice's voice had subtly begun to take on the deeper, darker timber that would mark his maturity; artistically he'd passed through puberty. Although he still concentrated on primo standards from the turn of the century through the '40s, at Capitol he was also encouraged to find a more contemporary sound. As a result, Sinatra not only resurrected his recording career, he split himself into two complementary personae: the barroom balladeer (he preferred to call himself a "saloon singer") and the finger-poppin' swinger. It's been said that he created the "concept album" by using the new 12-inch LP format to explore a series of songs set in a particular mood. (Although, in fact, he released "concept" 78 sets at Columbia, such as The Voice and Frankly Sentimental, in the '40s.) The dark-toned ballad collections featured the solitary Sinatra, leaning dejectedly against a lamppost or drowning his sorrows in booze and cigarettes, all alone at the far end of the bar (In the Wee Small Hours, Only the Lonely, No One Cares, Point of No Return — arranged by Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins or Stordahl). The flip side of this personality was the swingin' Sinatra, the suave hepcat who wore his hat at a cocky angle and projected an aura of effortless and unassailable cool, a perfect balance of confidence, nonchalance and sophistication (Songs for Swingin' Lovers, A Swingin' Affair, Come Fly With Me, Come Dance With Me — arranged by Riddle or May). Both alter-egos were equally authentic. As with any good doppelganger, neither could exist without the other, and it's only by putting them together that you can discover the quintessential Sinatra. At Capitol Sinatra worked with a number of arrangers to produce albums that are stunners by any standard: the aforementioned Point of No Return with Stordahl, Come Fly and Come Dance with May, No One Cares with Jenkins. But his signature collaborations with Nelson Riddle — the only arranger who could bring out the best in both Sinatras — top them all. Riddle loved the French impressionist composers, like Debussy and Ravel, and his arrangements have a similar lightness and transparency. Riddle's strings dance above Sinatra's voice, rather than cushioning it from below like Stordahl's heavier orchestrations. Many of his swingin'est charts take a tip from Ravel's Bolero: They start off understatedly, then slowly gather volume and momentum toward a cathartic climax. The most famous example is probably the celebrated 1956 version of Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin" (on Songs For Swingin' Lovers), a track so irresistible that it becomes definitive, another standard claimed as Sinatra's own. (Many years later, on the 1991 Duets album with Bono of the Irish pop band U2, the same song also marked what Sinatra expert Will Friedwald called "the bottom of the barrel, the all-time worst thing Sinatra has ever been involved with -- worse than the horrors of the '50s, '60s, and '70s combined." That's from Friedwald's definitive and indispensable book about Sinatra's recordings, Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer's Art.) Riddle's tempos fit the laid-back attitude of Sinatra's vocals like a finely-tailored suit, and often the singer would casually hang just behind the gently rolling rhythm they'd likened to a natural heartbeat, deliciously biding his own sweet time and in no hurry to catch up. Riddle's somber settings for In the Wee Small Hours and Only the Lonely wrap Sinatra's dejected vocals in the sonic equivalent of nocturnal darkness. You can almost see the shadows; you can definitely feel their chilly presence in your bones. If Riddle drew inspiration from Ravel for the swingin' tunes, these orchestrations suggest the static, limpid, liquid qualities of Debussy's orchestrations. (More about these two moody masterpieces in the accompanying discography, and in Plattersville, where you'll find my picks of Sinatra's best albums ). With the exception of the scathingly brilliant The Manchurian Candidate, an uncategorizable masterpiece that injects a potent dose of the absurdist cynicism of black comedy into a political thriller bristling with intrigue and suspense, Sinatra never made a movie that could quite match the high-level artistry of these records (although pictures like Some Came Running, On the Town, From Here to Eternity, The Man with the Golden Arm and even Suddenly are terrific). He didn't like the tedious process of moviemaking, and probably resented his limited power to control it, especially after he became accustomed to having complete artistic freedom in the recording studio. But I've often wondered if his experience as an actor, learning to convey emotion through the convincing delivery of dialogue, had anything to do with the development of his fresh and conversational singing style. Sinatra and his best arrangers (Riddle, Jenkins, Stordahl, even Costa on a good day, like "There Used to Be a Ballpark") made records that were more than transcriptions of verses, choruses, and bridges -- they were little three-minute movies, with their own narrative (as well as musical) rhythms and climaxes. Heck, even Sinatra's album covers are little single-frame motion pictures: the images on Wee Small Hours, No One Cares, or She Shot Me Down could be 8x10s or frame enlargements from classic films noir. On record, and particularly in concert, Sinatra sang would strut and fret his hour upon the stage as an actor in character, his vocal performance following (and occasionally deviating from) the "script" of music and lyrics. But, like the great movie stars (and Sinatra could be Cary Grant or James Cagney or John Wayne, depending on the song), these characters were all parts of himself. There's a world of difference (and experience) between the vest-bustin' young lover in "Oh! Look at Me Now" and the jaded, depressed loser/loner in "Only the Lonely" -- but there's no question that they're both Sinatra. The startling sense of intimacy that came through on Sinatra's records was unprecedented, the happy result of several developments: Improved microphone technology captured sound with a sensitivity and detail never heard before. Stereo recording opened up new dimensions of space and depth, properties Sinatra's records showcased with splendid subtlety while others were still toying with Ping-Pong novelty effects. Meanwhile Sinatra's miraculous ability to create the impression of singing and talking at the same time not only enhanced the exquisite musicality of his performances (in contrast, say, to Rex Harrison's famously theatrical recitation of lyrics-as-dialogue in My Fair Lady), it also made you feel he was singing directly to you, a quality unique to the art of records. (And if you've ever sat alone in the dark with a bottle of scotch and "Only the Lonely," you know that Frank can tell you things about your own life that even your best friends don't understand.) As Sinatra's voice opened up to new emotional colors, his selection of material also became more personal and idiosyncratic. He often reached back into his Columbia catalog to practice his alchemy, a Midas touch that could turn dusty old tunes into musical gold. More than ever, songs that weren't even written for him may as well have been by the time he'd recorded them. The Reprise Years (1960-81). Reprise was Sinatra's own label, a place where he could do things His Way — and for better or worse, he did. His Capitol contract overlapped the formation of Reprise, so for a couple years he put out albums on both labels. But from the start, the characteristics that distinguish the Capitol Sinatra from the Reprise Sinatra are almost as apparent as the differences between the Columbia Sinatra and the Capitol one. Ring-A-Ding-Ding was the kickoff, a delightful set of swingin' songs (recorded in 1960, while he was still with Capitol) that feels like a slight comedown only because of the peaks Sinatra had reached at Capitol. Already there are audible changes: As Sinatra's voice continued to darken and become more brittle, Reprise tended to overcompensate with echo — the recording equivalent of smearing Vaseline on the camera lens. That old trick may have smoothed out some of the rough spots, but it was at the expense of some warmth and intimacy. There's an artificial, faintly hollow and metallic ring to the vocals, which are also pushed farther back into the mix. The coldness and distance could be subtly alienating. Nevertheless, there's some great stuff here — including the elegiac, autumnal masterpiece "September of My Years," with Gordon Jenkins. The collaborations with Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Antonio Carlos Jobim are lively and enjoyable. "Moonlight Sinatra" (a bit of conceptual lunacy that collects standards with the word "moon" in their titles) and "Frank Sinatra Sings the Academy Award Winners" are both lovely records arranged by Riddle — but although they each contain some classic songs, the flimsy "concepts" on which they're based seem almost arbitrary compared to their predecessors' at Capitol. Sinatra was vocal about his contempt for rock 'n' roll in the '60s and '70s — most likely because it threatened to turn him into an anachronism. (Just for the novelty of it, you should hear his Chubby Checkerized rendition of "Everybody's Twistin'," arranged and conducted by Neil Hefti, on the CD version of 1962's brilliant Sinatra and Swingin' Brass. It's weird -- but it's also fascinating, kind of like a car crash.) Sinatra's increasing feelings of estrangement from mainstream pop culture, combined with a discouraging scarcity of decent material, finally drove him into temporary "retirement" in 1971. (Well, collaborations with Rod McKuen might make anybody feel like giving up.) Still, before he went (only to re-emerge with much fanfare four years later as "Ol' Blue Eyes"), he managed to find some contemporary tunes that suited him quite nicely — among them the breezy and haunting "Summer Wind" (a dash of organ seasoning Riddle's arrangement) and the lightweight but irresistible "Strangers in the Night" (a song, legend has it, that Sinatra initially turned down in disgust, but which turned into a 1966 smash hit and forever made a household phrase out of "doo-be-doo-be-doo"). Sinatra turned Paul Anka's self-aggrandizing "My Way" into his anthem, the defiant declaration of a man who secretly fears that he's just an Old Fogey. It's fascinating to listen as the singer's tone of triumphant bravado is eventually swamped by a rising tide of bitterness and self-pity — the very qualities that qualify it as the definitive theme song of the Nixon era. And, of course, there's Trilogy, the 1980 three-disc career capstone that fittingly showcases the best and the worst of late Sinatra. By this time we'd grown accustomed to the fact that these two things had become inseparable and we'd have to take what we could get — sparks of enduring artistry right alongside occasional appalling lapses in taste. The latter propensity achieves its apotheosis, its most grandiose and excruciatingly protracted expression, in Jenkins' lugubrious (not to mention ludicrous and pompous) so-called "cantata," which attempts to do for Francis Albert what Handel did for Jesus. It takes up the entire second CD and is entitled "Reflections on the Future in Three Tenses." Luckily Sinatra's future proved to be less dire than Jenkins seemed to predict: The wretched pseudo-collaborations on the "Duets" discs were awful, but it never got as bad as this. Some people wished that Sinatra, his pipes cracked and rusty with age, had packed it in earlier. But his follow-up to Trilogy was an underrated near-masterpiece called She Shot Me Down (1981). This collection of saloon songs, reeking of stale smoke and flat beer, is the closest Sinatra ever got to the moody brilliance of Wee Small Hours and Only the Lonely. The title comes from Cher's 1966 single, "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)," written by future Republican and Palm Springs mayor Sonny Bono — which, incredibly, Sinatra and Jenkins slow down and darken until it turns into a damn fine ballad, reeking of cheap whiskey and stale cigarette smoke. That's a compliment — Sinatra commits himself to this album with more emotional authenticity than he'd shown in ages.
"This may be the last time we will be
together." I saw Sinatra perform in the flesh only once, on what may well have been his final tour. It was April 23, 1994, at Radio City Music Hall. Opening was Don Rickles, who did his usual assortment of appalling and incoherent racist insult jokes and wound up with a song about loving America and loving your Mom. It was really an awful spectacle -- vulgar, crass, tacky, embarrassing. But, somehow, the abrasive/unctuous pettiness of Rickles was just the right thing to set the stage for Sinatra; the sputtering comic was sort of like the straight shot of cheap booze that makes the rest of your drinks taste better for the whole night. Despite some fluffed lyrics (and a couple fractured notes), The Man lived up to The Legend that night (which indeed still included the dreaded, inescapable "My Way"). Like many great artists, particularly those whose powers are on the wane, Sinatra was fully aware of his limitations and sometimes found inspired ways around them. I'd still rather listen to the unsteady, cracking pipes of twilight-time Sinatra than the comparatively colorless crooning he did in the '40s. It was during a dreamy and enchanting version of "Embraceable You," that I suddenly realized something about the peculiar dynamic of the show. There was electricity in the air, and in Sinatra's demeanor, but it wasn't just the kind usually generated by the give-and-take between a master performer and his rapturous, adoring audience. There I was, drifting along on George Gershwin's lush melody, transported by Ira's equally luscious lyrics, when Sinatra sang the wrong line. Instead of "I love all the many charms about you," he led with the next line: "Above all, I want my arms about you." I was frozen in suspense, wondering how he'd slip out of this lyrical corner he'd painted himself into. OK, so the solution he came up with was less than inspired: he sang, "Above all, I love the sound of you," but at least it featured the same rounded vowel sound, and that counts for something. Later on this mixture of empathy and suspense — "C'mon, Frank, you can make it!" — came to the fore when "Mack the Knife" got away from him completely. But he wasn't even flustered. As Frank, Jr. vamped with the orchestra, Sinatra walked over to one of the teleprompters and made a rolling motion with one arm: "Where the hell am I?" he cracked. "Nope, that's not it," he said as he watched the words roll by. But once he found his place he hit the ground running. Master showman that he was, he threw himself into the rest of the song, selling the hell out of it as it built to a patented Bolero-like Big Finish. Whereupon the audience went crazy and leapt to its feet. This was by no means an obligatory standing ovation — we were reciprocating the genuine enthusiasm Sinatra had put into his performance, maybe a little surprised that he still had any left in him. We were also cheering him on and congratulating him — not just on a job well done, but for rebounding when the chips were down, not giving up, and giving it that extra surge of energy as he approached the finale. For the umpteenth time, Sinatra pulled off the impossible and finished in style. The world was his. -30- |
For a glimpse of Sinatra's darker side, visit
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