FRANK ON THE FOURTH

As my own little attempt to mark Fourth of July, here's a celebration of that quintessential American, Frank Sinatra. Who better to discuss his work than my friend, Will Friedwald, author of surely the best book on the man's music? Will, who also ghost-wrote Tony Bennett's autobiography, is music critic of the New York Sun, conservative rival to the Times. Taking time out from running around Manhattan's nightspots (well, somebody's got to do it..) he answered a Q&A on the greatest singer of them all.

Q: If you could only keep one Sinatra album in your collection, which would it be?

A: Sinatra was such a split personality – an "18-carat manic depressive" as he once put it – that it’s impossible to pick just one. It has to be two at the very least, one ballad album and one swingin' album (note the apostrophe). The ballad album would probably be In The Wee Small Hours (or Close To You) and the up-tempo album is a toss-up between Songs For Swingin' Lovers and A Swingin' Affair. There are dozens of other recordings that reveal the depth of his feeling and the extent of his musicianship, but these early 12" albums are probably the climax of Sinatra’s career, the ones where he best puts it all together and revels in the joy of discovery.

Q: Which was the first Sinatra song you fell in love with?

A: That’s an easy one: when I was 13 or 14, my Aunt Mary-Lois played me A Swingin’ Affair and I went nuts for it, especially the song "I Wish I Were In Love Again," both the song itself and the performance. I had to run out and buy the album – this was the mid-'70s, and the only way you could get it was on a "special abridged edition," meaning it only had 12 of the original 16 cuts. Thankfully, "I Wish I Were In Love Again" was not cut – it was still on the abridged album – or I might never have bought it. That was a typical case of a teenager going nuts over a single track and playing it over and over obsessively – it opened up many new worlds for me, not only in terms of music and culture, but in terms of "the faint aroma of performing seals," if you catch my drift. So thanks to my Aunt Mary-Lois!

Q: Name the one great Sinatra recording that most people have never heard?

A: To me it’s ironic that Reprise still has not issued the second Sinatra-Jobim album the way it was originally meant to be heard. As you know, he planned the second album as a complete package unto itself, but for some reason changed his mind, and then released half the tracks, along with some other material with Don Costa, in a hodge-podge album called Sinatra And Company. If anything, the second batch of sessions with Jobim, arranged by Eumir Deodato, is even better than the first, but you still have to buy the complete Reprise suitcase to get the whole works. Actually, both LPs worth, the complete contents of the two albums, would fit easily on a single CD. To me, those are the most palatable and exciting recordings of Brazilian music ever done, apart from, possibly, the Stan Getz series.

Q: I've never enjoyed the pre-Capitol recordings - they're too smooth for me. Did you ever have that problem? If not, what am I missing?

A: Well he continued to grow as an artist – obviously he had only attained a certain level of growth in the earlier part of his career, up through his mid-‘30s. But I treasure the Dorsey and Stordahl recordings almost as much as I do the work from the ‘50s and ‘60s. I have spent a lot of time going through the live radio material by Tommy Dorsey and Sinatra owned by BMG, so far we have put out about four or five CDs of previously unissued performances. I have long since that if Sinatra had disappeared after 1942 he would still have been one of the all-time greats! He was a complete and great artist unto himself even as early as the Dorsey period. And the 1943-1952 Columbia Recordings are also especially dear to me, that is some of the best pop singing ever documented.

I happen to think the ‘40s are especially valuable in that there is tons of marvelous radio material – including hundreds of rare and interesting songs - waiting to be issued commercially, which will hopefully happen at some point. Sinatra is a split personality not only in the sense of the difference between his ballads and swingers, but in that he can sound like completely different artists in different periods of his career.

Q: What do you think of that infamous Kitty Kelley book and the more recent, Mafioso-obsessed biography co-written by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan?

A: As my friend Chuck Granata pointed out, every ten years or so there is bound to be another new big smear book. These are all pathologies, where someone just strings together as many negative points relating to someone’s life, puts it together and calls it a book. It would be just as easy, and certainly more meaningful, to do a book called Frank Sinatra: Angel On Earth and catalogue all the zillions of dollars he raised for charity over the course of his life.

I am by no means a religious or even remotely spiritual person, but I would think St. Peter or whoever is sitting in judgment would be willing to forgive a few beaten-up photographers and otherwise trampled paparazzi in light of the millions of people Sinatra helped with his philanthropy. I reviewed the Summers book at length in The New York Sun and I said that I felt personally offended by it - in that he used my book as a source. Obviously, once we publish something, we have no control over who uses it and to what end.

Q: Who's the best singer you've heard lately?

A:You mean, young or old? Established or new? The best singing is still being done by veterans like Freddy Cole, Ernestine Anderson, Tony Bennett, Andy Bey – but there is an impressive crop of current-generation ladies like Cassandra Wilson, Dianne Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater (I am almost ready to add Catherine Russell, who has been around a while but only lately getting noticed, to this list), all of whom are just over 50. Then there are Diana Krall, Ann Hampton-Callaway, John Pizzarelli, Kevin Mahogany, Allan Harris, and Michael Feinstein (not a jazz artist, but one who does a tremendous service to The Great American Songbook just the same) who are almost as dependable and exciting.

I’m also paying a lot of attention to a few emerging artists who can be found in more of the fringe clubs in Manhattan, like Carolyn Leonhart, Tessa Souter, Pamela Luss, and Kate McGarry – they’re all sort of in the about-to-be-discovered phase. Sometimes I think the best "singer" around is the pianist, Bill Charlap , who doesn’t sing a note - with his voice, I mean - but does the songs better justice with his piano than almost any vocalist ever could.

Q: What's your idea of the perfect musical night-out in Manhattan?

A: What’s great now is that several clubs (Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, The Jazz Standard) have an early show at 7:30pm, which means that you can still race off to Birdland or The Village Vanguard for their “regular” early show, at 9pm. It’s great for seeing multiple shows in one night. It’s especially cool to see a singer and then an instrumental act, or a young artist and a veteran, a mainstream act and an avant-garde group, a pianist and a horn. There is so much outstanding jazz in New York that you can see two shows an evening, every night of the week, and still not catch everything worthwhile. It’s amazing to me that I write an average of two columns a week for The New York Sun and I still can’t cover every show worth seeing and every CD worth hearing.

Q: Do your friends give you any grief for writing for the Sun?

A: What friends? I have no idea what you could possibly mean! Actually, The New York Sun has the best arts page in the city – possibly the world – I would even stack us against The New York Times, with their considerably deeper resources. We have jazz (and / or cabaret) twice a week, plus at least two regular classical critics, plus an outstanding pop reviewer, plus reviews of every notable play and film. There are many readers who buy us just for our arts coverage – and get more than their fifty cents worth!

If you'd like to read more about Will's views on the Great American Songbook, take a look at the Jerry Jazz Musician site.

PS: My own choice of album that most people have never heard of is the live show in Paris, 1962. You definitely get the two faces of Sinatra there, the good and the, ahem, not so good.

As it's a special day, I'm opening comments on this post.

Comments

[RWB]

Thanks for this great talk with the great Will Friedwald. His is definitely the best book on Sinatra. And not just on his music, I think, because Sinatra's center, surely, was his music -- and in writing so well about Sinatra's approach to his music, Friedwald probably gets closer to giving us "the real Frank" than any number of sordid, gossipy, superficial biographies written for people who've never even cared to listen to "Close To You" or "In The Wee Small Hours."

[BLR]

My dad loved the big bands and especially Frank Sinatra. I was born in 44' and grew up listening to 78's.My first LP was "This is Sinatra".I loved it, especially "I've got the World on a String" and "Rain".Sinatra taught me how to sing. I can remember the feeling that would come over me just waiting for his latest album to reach "Coles Record Store". I have all his LP's.My God, what a legacy he left us. He is, without a doubt, an artistic national treasure. For me it was always about his music not his personnel life.

[Parkito]

Great interview. I love Sinatra, and my love was greatly enhanced by Friedwald's "Sinatra: The Song is You."

Also a huge fan of the Columbia sides from the 40's, more so than the 70's material, which I consider a low point. His work with Gordon Jenkins is sadly unknown among most listeners.

[Sandy P]

Songs for Young Lovers is what turned my dad on to Frank as a teenager in the 50s.

My 1st concert was Frank. I grew up on his music.

[Ann Horodyski]

What can you say about Sinatra. He is the ultimate. I get chills still if I hear him on the radio - that's not very often anymore. Why??? Was at at least 20 of his concerts in Detroit, Toronto, Las Vegas. Perfection!!! Jobim album is out of this world. Thanks for telling me there is a second. Could never pick his best song.