December 12, 1915– Frank Sinatra:
“May you live to be 100 & may the last voice you hear be mine.”
My favorite sound in the entire world is a baritone in song & my favorite baritone voice of all time belongs to Francis Albert Sinatra, who was born on this very day, 100 years ago.
I understand that he was a lout & a bit of a thug, but no matter what he was like as a human being, I find his pitch, cadence, phrasing & musicality to be the best of all time.
I stand by my choice of his 1967 collaborative album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim to be a perfect album, in a league with Dusty In Memphis (1969), Revolver (1966) & Remain In Light (1980). A sleek & sexy collection of songs by Jobim, plus 3 covers from The Great American Songbook, this album is virtually flawless.
In the 1960s, the USA was in a fever over Brasil’s Bossa Nova sound. Performers such as Jobim, Joao Gilberto & Astrud Gilberto had a tremendous influence on our Pop & Jazz music. Stan Getz, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald & other artists absorbed or collaborated on the Brazilian boom.
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim opens with the best cover of The Girl From Ipanema with Sinatra trading verses in English with Jobim in Portuguese. Sinatra’s voice is quiet to the point of whispering. If you are only familiar with the Swing Era Sinatra with his full voiced vocals, you may find the spare renditions surprising. I love a hot summer night with a cool drink while I listen to Sinatra & Jobim seduce me with Dindi, Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars, & Meditation. The 2 musical greats change up the old American standards Change Partners, I Concentrate On You, & Baubles, Bangles & Beads into timeless tropical splendor.
I am willing to put his mid-1950s to early 1960s Capitol Records “concept” albums with the Nelson Riddle arrangements: In The Wee Small Hours, Songs For Swingin’ Lovers, Come Fly With Me, Only The Lonely, & Nice N’ Easy in the same category. These recordings are from Sinatra’s “I lost Ava Gardner” period. His singing is at its most vulnerable, intense, & brilliant. No one has ever phrased a lyric like Sinatra. Most of these songs were already old standards by this period, sung hundreds of times by hundreds of singers. But with Sinatra, it’s as if you are listening & understanding the lyrics for the first time. This period is my favorite Sinatra, with his most mature musical personalities: the lonely saloon singer & the swaggering, sophisticated swinger.
“Basically, I’m for anything that gets you through the night- be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniels.”
7 songs sung by Sinatra were nominated for Academy Awards, with 3 wins. The man himself won 14 Grammy Awards, the first in 1959 & the last in 1996. Plus he has been given the Grammy Hall Of Fame Award & Lifetime, & Legend Awards. He took home 4 Golden Globes, The Kennedy Center Honor Award (1983), Presidential Medal Of Freedom (1985), NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award (1987) & an Honorary Doctorate Of Fine Arts from my alma mater Loyola Marymount University (1984). His other awards & accolades provide too huge a list, even for me who likes lists.
I also find Sinatra to be a talented & a nimble dancer, even holding his own with Gene Kelly. He was an underestimated actor & screen presence, winning as Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here To Eternity (1954), plus a nomination for Best Actor for playing a junkie in The Man With The Golden Arm (1955), & critical acclaim for his great work in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). I still find his work to be engaging & spry in the musicals: High Society (1956), Pal Joey (1957), Guys & Dolls (1955), & On The Town (1949).
Last year, on his 99th birthday, I caught the curious propaganda short film The House I Live In (1945) starring Sinatra. Made to oppose anti-Semitism at the end of WW 2, it received an Honorary Academy Award & a special Golden Globe award in 1946.
I was living in LA in the early 1970s & I was fortunate enough to be an acquaintance of actress/singer Betty Garrett. She once told me that because of their past brief affiliations with the Communist Party & thanks to her husband’s involvement with people from The Group Theatre, Garrett & actor husband, Larry Parks, became embroiled with the House Un-American Activities Committee, although only Parks was forced to testify. While Parks admitted he had been a member of the party, he had refused to name others, although it was widely assumed that he had. Parks was front & center on the Hollywood Blacklist.
Garrett also had trouble finding work, although as the mother of 2 young sons, she did not mind being unemployed as much as Parks did. Garrett related to me that the only person that would see them socially in Hollywood was Sinatra, who defied Hollywood convention & was open in his support of the couple with friendship & money.
Sinatra & his pals played a major role in the desegregation of Las Vegas hotels & casinos in the 1950s and 1960s. Early in the Civil Rights Movement, Sinatra played a benefit show at Carnegie Hall for Martin Luther King, Jr. He led his fellow Rat Pack members & fellow record label artists in boycotting venues that refused entry to black patrons. But, despite his strong public & private work on behalf equality, he was still known to make racist jibes at African American artists, including his own pal Sammy Davis, Jr. at their concerts, & he was a bully toward gay actor Montgomery Clift while filming To Here From Eterinity. But for a man of his times, Sinatra seemed to be a stand-up guy.
Sinatra was a favorite of my parental units & they still have a large collection of his LPs. On Saturday nights, they would make a cocktail & pop on some Sinatra on the Hi-Fi & ask me to scram. After listening to his recordings for the past 60 years, I am still moved when I listen to that wondrous voice.
I consider about how well he treated The Parks & his outrage at the racism faced by Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr. & other black entertainers. When I think about his difficult personality, I frame my feelings with Sinatra’s own words:
“Being an 18-karat manic-depressive, & having lived a life of violent emotional contradictions, I have an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as elation.”
Sinatra recorded & toured well into his 70s, even after a series of announcements of his retirement & as many farewell concerts as Cher. Sinatra took his final curtain call at 82 years old in 1998, gone too soon from too much Jack Daniels & too many Camel unfiltered cigarettes. In this crazy world we live in, he still managed to sing duets with Celine Dion & Barbra Streisand even though he was dead.
Sinatra’s last words: “I’m losing…”. Not a phrase he needed much while he was working in show biz. His gravestone reads:
“The best is yet to come.”
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