Frank Sinatra and Lester Young

[DMP]

Will Friedwald, quoting (by way of Arlene Francis!!) Sinatra, in today's "Wall Street Journal" - "I knew Lester well, we were close friends and we had a mutual admiration society."

[JohnJ]

The article in question.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...=googlenews_wsj

[Harold_Z]

I always had heard that Pres dug Sinatra. I remember reading or hearing that during Pres's time in New York's Alvin Hotel Sinatra was ususally on his record player.

[gmonahan]

The article in question.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...=googlenews_wsj

Thanks for posting this. Caused me to get out my Young Verve set and listen to "I Cover the Waterfront" again!

greg mo

[Dave James]

Another Sinatra related story. When The Doors were first signed by Elektra Records and brought to the studio, Jim Morrison was shown the microphone he would be using for his vocals and recognized it as the same microphone Frank Sinatra used on many of his recordings. I guess he was a big fan.

Up over and out.

[gmonahan]

Speaking of Sinatra, I'm pretty sure I heard that there's another box set of cd concerts coming out (kind of like "Sinatra: Las Vegas"). Has anyone heard that? I think it was "Sinatra: New York" or something like that. I only caught the tail end of the story.

greg mo

[Dave Garrett]

Speaking of Sinatra, I'm pretty sure I heard that there's another box set of cd concerts coming out (kind of like "Sinatra: Las Vegas"). Has anyone heard that? I think it was "Sinatra: New York" or something like that. I only caught the tail end of the story.

It's a 5-disc set due out in November:

Sinatra: New York

[JohnJ]

Speaking of Sinatra, I'm pretty sure I heard that there's another box set of cd concerts coming out (kind of like "Sinatra: Las Vegas"). Has anyone heard that? I think it was "Sinatra: New York" or something like that. I only caught the tail end of the story.

It's a 5-disc set due out in November:

Sinatra: New York

Thanks for this. Sounds great, I have Hollywood and Vegas and will buy this too when the price is right.

[gmonahan]

Speaking of Sinatra, I'm pretty sure I heard that there's another box set of cd concerts coming out (kind of like "Sinatra: Las Vegas"). Has anyone heard that? I think it was "Sinatra: New York" or something like that. I only caught the tail end of the story.

It's a 5-disc set due out in November:

Sinatra: New York

Thanks for this. Sounds great, I have Hollywood and Vegas and will buy this too when the price is right.

Me too--and thanks from me as well for the link. I wish there was more from earlier periods, but this does sound interesting. Sure would be nice to have an audio multi-disc set of his TV shows. The third Duets album (taken from TV appearances) showed that there was a fair amount of unmined material there.

greg mo

[danasgoodstuff]

It just occured to me that the personal connection between Sinatra & Young may have been Sweets Edison who worked with both of them...

[BruceH]

Will Friedwald, quoting (by way of Arlene Francis!!) Sinatra, in today's "Wall Street Journal" - "I knew Lester well, we were close friends and we had a mutual admiration society."

Doesn't surprise me...I read somewhere a long time ago that Lester Young was a fan of Sinatra.

[mikelz777]

I just finished reading Lewis Porter's "Lester Young" and noted that Pres expressed admiration for Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, Dick Haymes and Kay Starr. Lyrics were very important to him. He stated, "A musician should know the lyrics of the songs he plays. A lot of musicians that play nowadays don't know the lyrics of the songs. That way they're just playing the changes [chords]. That's why I like records by singers when I'm listening at home. "

[Dave James]

Will Friedwald, quoting (by way of Arlene Francis!!) Sinatra, in today's "Wall Street Journal" - "I knew Lester well, we were close friends and we had a mutual admiration society."

Doesn't surprise me...I read somewhere a long time ago that Lester Young was a fan of Sinatra.

In Sinatra-world, "close friends" could mean he met him once.

Up over and out.

[Ted O'Reilly]

In the booklet for the Mosaic Young/Basie release, Loren Schoenberg writes (re: the March 20/39 session)

...In 1956 Young told Nat Hentoff, "If I could put together exactly the kind of band I wanted, Frank Sinatra would be the singer." Sinatra frequently cited Billie Holiday as a major influence, but far less known is his remark to Arlene Francis in a 1979 interview that "I knew Lester well. We were close friends, and we had a mutual admiration society. I took from what he did, and he took from what I did." Several close friends of Young's have remarked that he frequently played Sinatra's recordings in his hotel rooms when on the road. This (Don't Worry 'Bout Me) was one of the first tunes that Sinatra recorded for Capitol, which marked the beginning of his 1950s renaissance. Quincy Jones also wrote that "Frank's greatness -- besides immaculate storytelling, drama and elocution -- was that he phrased like Lester Young." It's a shame that these two icons never recorded together, although one diehard fan has synced their recordings of ALL OF ME so it sounds like they had.