Sinatra Preference - Balladeer or Swinger

[Chuck Nessa]

I think many of the Capitol recordings of "up" tunes were too stiff to swing. He made adjustments later but...

I have a lot of problems with Sinatra as an icon of anything but some of the ballads are top notch.

Sort of like my problem with Mel Lewis.

[Pete C]

I love the Jobim material because it's Sinatra without the swagger of the swinging albums, and with good charts. I don't love the Gordon Jenkins charts much on the ballads albums--too lush for me.

[JSngry]

This clip has a Basie instrumental and then "Fly Me To the Moon." Wish the rest was available somewhere.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=Am3RZzj3BhY

Damn...

Re: Ring-A-Ding-Ding...there was a bootleg out of the session tapes for that album, and if anybody has any doubts about the seriousness of Sinatra's musicianship, this session should eradicate them. The guy really gets inside the arrangements, listens to them, figures out where to be in (or out) how to shade relative to the ensemble, everything. And then once he's got it figured out - BAM it all comes together. The electricity of Sinatra looking for his zone and then finding it is tangible on these session tapes. In a better world than thisone, whoever controls the "product" and who ever consumes it will get to stuff like this, study it, and learn.

I'm like Chuck - I have a lot of BIG problems with Sinatra as an "icon" of anything, but all that hype aside, there is some truly remarkable singing to be heard if/when one can get past all the hype.

[gmonahan]

Back when this thread started, I would have voted for the swingers, but while I still love them, I've come around to the ballads, especially since TTK turned me on to the Original Master Recording (in gloriously recorded Mono) of "Only the Lonely." I'd owned the stereo version for years and loved it, but I've listened to this one many times now, and it just gets richer with each hearing. It used to be that I went directly to the saloon songs, of course ("Angel Eyes" and the sublime "One for My Baby"), but with added listenings, I go to the incredible title cut and Frank's version of "Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry." Both are definitive and among those special recordings in my collection that make me shake my head in wonder.

gregmo

[ghost of miles]

The swingers have definitely grown on me over the years (in part, as some others have noted, through the 1960s Reprise sessions, which I've just gotten around to listening to in the past year or so), but albums like ONLY THE LONELY and IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS still bring me down on the side of the ballads if I have to vote. And Mark's points vis-a-vis CLOSE TO YOU are well-taken--somewhat of an underrated Sinatra LP for sure.

[JSngry]

Hey Jim, whattya think about Rosemary Clooney's Love album, in the context of Only the Lonely?

Aorry, missed this the first time around...those are two heavy, heavy albums, I think.

[catesta]

This clip has a Basie instrumental and then "Fly Me To the Moon." Wish the rest was available somewhere.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=Am3RZzj3BhY

Damn...

Re: Ring-A-Ding-Ding...there was a bootleg out of the session tapes for that album, and if anybody has any doubts about the seriousness of Sinatra's musicianship, this session should eradicate them. The guy really gets inside the arrangements, listens to them, figures out where to be in (or out) how to shade relative to the ensemble, everything. And then once he's got it figured out - BAM it all comes together. The electricity of Sinatra looking for his zone and then finding it is tangible on these session tapes. In a better world than thisone, whoever controls the "product" and who ever consumes it will get to stuff like this, study it, and learn.

I'm like Chuck - I have a lot of BIG problems with Sinatra as an "icon" of anything, but all that hype aside, there is some truly remarkable singing to be heard if/when one can get past all the hype.

I know what you're saying but for me personally I think he lived up to he hype. By comparison to a lot of shit we hear and see today Frank may have very well be under-hyped imo.

[JSngry]

Under-hyped as a singer/musician, definitely. Over-hyped as a "personality", I think, and not necessarily his fault. But you got a big mass of people who have a Pavlovian reflex to SinatraSounds that is way out of proportion to people who actually listen to the music. Witness the number of truly lame Sinatra "clones" on the current "lounge" scene. I'm not talking "big names" like Connick, etc, just local guys who sound like raw shit and still get the gigs and draw the crowds. The whole Rat Pack booze & broads thing...Sinatra was a genuinely complicated man, not some idiot who lived large just to live large, ya'know? That shit is ugly, and not at reflective of the totality of what Sinatra "was" (there was definitely The Beast, but there was also The Beauty...). But all you gotta do is look the look, cop the "attitude", & play the tunes, and a lot of people will go there with you, because they think that's all there is to go to. And they're so wrong about that...

Of course, such is the nature of any celebrity, but hey.... we all take our stands, and this is a place where I'll take mine. Sinatra was too great an artist to not raise a voice every once in a while, ya' know?

[Larry Kart]

Favorite Sinatra story, by way of comedian Shecky Greene: "Frank Sinatra -- wonderful man, saved my life. One night three guys were beating the crap out of me in the parking lot of the Sands Hotel, and Frank said, "That's enough.'"

[CJ Shearn]

let's get Lon's take on this!!!! (just kidding!!! )

[jazzbo]

Hey, it says "no hating."

[CJ Shearn]

lol, Lon.

[BruceH]

My favorite Sinatra ballad album is still In the Wee Small Hours.

[jazzbo]

I'm laughing myself.

I don't know if I ever "hated" Sinatra. Years on this board have shown me what an impact he had. Years of practice have led me to be able to more easily separate my personal feelings from art and artists when necessary. I just don't really enjoy Sinatra. In this poll I'd go for swingers.