JSngry

Judge Wapner Mike Judge Luann Platter

Alvin Stoller Bill Miller Joe Comfort

I'm not opposed to this, not because I want to necessarily pick up JC posters (although of course they are welcome here... that goes without saying I hope) but because I like the idea of bringing a wider range of music discussion to the board. What should we call it? Funny Rat.

Newton Minnow Minnie Ripperton Jack the Ripper

And a mark he would indeed be...

May I be so bold as to recommend Nice & Easy? Ballad artistry, true artistry, without the heartbreak. Agree, although ironically the title cut really doesn't belong on this otherwise excellent ballad set. Interesting that while you much prefer the ballad Sinatra, your favorites, i.e., Only the Lonely, Nice and Easy as well as the aforementioned In the Wee....., seem to be the Nelson Riddle arranged sides, the man also most responsible for the arrangements on the best of his swinging material while at Capitol. Regarding the Gordon Jenkins ballad arrangements for Sinatra during that mid to late '50s period, do you find his heavy reliance on strings a bit too saccharine as I do, or what? Jenkins is not a particular favorite of mine, although there were certain moments of undeniable synergy between the two up until the (almost) very end. But Riddle, yeah, that's my man. For both ballads and swing numbers, actually. Harold talked about having to shed w/the sides to get the real changes. Well hell, in Riddle's case, you're just as often as not getting his changes, and they are quite often brilliant. And just to clarify - there's a lot of the "swinging" Sinatra that I like quite a bit. Even if Sinatra himself didn't "swing", his bands always did, and the Riddle sessions seemed to always have the amazing Joe Comfort on bass. You wanna know why that shit swings, look no further than Joe Comfort. And if the band was swinging, Sinatra could get into that pocket of his and ride the shit out of it. I think he got better/more serious about this aspect of his craft as he aged, though. But as to why Sinatra "matters", I still maintain that you have to go to the ballads. The swing stuff is fine, fun, often kickass (in the best sense), and it's had a lot of sociological impact (most of it negative, imo). But from Sinatra's end, it consists mostly/usually of craft and attitude (definite exceptions, to be sure). But on the ballads, there's some amazing displays of vocal and interpretive skills of the very highest level, and as a result, there's a depth and complexity of emotion there that the uptempo stuff just does not have. It's art, if you believe in such a thing. And in my mind, attitude and craft only "matter" in the moment and the moments immediately surrounding it. But art matters forever. The question I'm asking myself now is this - why am I even talking about this? Sinatra's dead, the cultural climate that created/sustained him is either dead or pretending to still be alive, I've gotten what I need to get from him, and if I need some more, I know where it is. Do I really need to be having this conversation? Apparently so , but it bothers me that I do.

Ok, seriously, Crouch is not an idiot musically. He has some very good understandings of some pretty important things. But lordymercy does he go out of his way to hide that!

Again, I ask...

May I be so bold as to recommend Nice & Easy? Ballad artistry, true artistry, without the heartbreak.

That's a rhetorical question couched in irony, right?

Lorenzo Music Tommy Tune Mister Melody

Well then, that would make me a businessman! First time I've ever been called that.

Proctologist Just Plain Bill Bill Justice

Lousy Tipper Cosmo Topper Earl Tupper

i'll agree with all of that, which is why I said he never really did "swing". He did have his own way of doing it, and it was very tied to the beat, which is usually the antithesis of "swing", at least in the "modern" sense of finding the cracks in the basic pulse and bouncing off and around them naturally & effortlessly. In those terms, I prefer to think of him as "driving" rahter than "swinging", but really, that's probably just semantics. But I still think that his real artistry was on the ballads.

Big Daddy Kane Kanye West Kenya's Kip Keino

I think I like Sinatra all the more specifically because he really doesn't swing exactly. No, he never really did "swing". What he could do (and did do more & more as he aged), was to find the pocket of a swing groove, get down deep into it, and ride the shit out of it. He didn't get outside that pocket without sounding anywhere from awkward to downright corny, but when he was in that pocket, he was dangerous. He could, and did, push a good beat almost to the breaking point like very few, if any, others. I saw him at Caesar's in 1981, and he did that shit all damn night, much to my then-naive amazement. It was palpably intense. But I still think his real artistry was on the ballads.

WTF? Calm down, dude. All I was doing was trying to recommend a book I'm enjoying. C'mon, man, that was uncalled for. I've read it, and yeah, it's a very good book. No dis of you or the book intended. Sorry if it came across as such. It's just that I'm not particularly looking forward to spending my remaining years where I've spent my previous ones, and the whole Sinatra-fetishism that is rampant across the land by people who should know better (and many, especially among the young, who should but apparently don't) is an impediment to that. The guy was one helluva singer (especially on ballads), but when you got kids wanting to play "I've Got You Under My Skin" and stuff and expecting you to be excited about it, like you've never played/heard it before, well hey - sorry. Can't do that. Won't do that. Especially when there is style without substance. And I've yet to hear anybody under the age of 40 who even begins to appreciate the substance, much less deal with it. The guy was a singer, dammit, and a damn good one at that, and that's why he really matters today. But who gives a shit about that anymore? Cats just want to do the "Rat Pack" thing as an alternative alternative, if you know what I eman. Sorry, but I gotta say fuck that. And then the old folks think that they're cool again because "the kids" are digging what they dig. Uh...no. Two wrongs don't make a right, even if three lefts do... I can only take a "Sinatra fan" seriously if they're willing to just entertain the notion that Songs For Swinging Lovers is a damn good pop album of great sociological significance and immense musical pleasure, but Only The Lonely is a freakin' timeless masterpiece that plumbs the depths of a certain timeless element of the human condition. One's "hip", and the other's heavy. Can't say that I've ran into too many people willing to entertain that notion. Everybody wants "ring-a-ding-ding", it seems. But that shit really doesn't matter now, except as a necrophiiliac response to today's realities. Probably shouldn't have mattered then either, at least not as much as it did, but what's done is done. Or, it seems, not. It was against that fetishism, not Sinatra, nor the book, nor you, that I was venting. Love the art, got no use for the cult.

Relevant.

Maybe I'm living wrong, but I've spent the first part of my life being old, and am now going about the task of trying not being a stranger in my own world for my remaining days. The last thing I want is to experience the present as a befuddled and/or pissed off spectator for the rest of my life. I've seen it, hell, I am seeing it, and it ain't what I want. Yeah, Sinatra mattered, and in a lot of ways (artistic more than cultural) still does. But c'mon - if the best we can do for ourselves is to build our present on icons of the past, what are we doing to our own spirits other than enslaving them? I've "got" Sinatra, and a shitload more of the icons, and so have a lot of us. They're in there for keeps, surrounded by the deepest love. I don't need that elucidated or reinforced. What I need to do is do something for myself. The time for reverentially kneeling down should be significantly outweighed by the time for proudly standing tall and moving ahead. Can we just fucking move on? Ring-a-ding-ding, ya'll.

Geez, I was under the assumption that if it came out of a clarinet, then it was what that particular clarinet sounded like being played by that particular player. Another illusion shattered!

Y'all know I paid Jim for this. True! And Monday pays me for all the things I say about here. My reputation to the contrary, I'm a totally unprincipled whore.

What's a dibic?

Big Black Little Walter Edgar Cayce