Frank Sinatra Commemoration

In case you missed it, December 12^th was the one hundredth anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s birth.  There are a number of commemorative posts out on the blogosphere and news world.  And rightly so.  Frank Sinatra is I think is generally considered the greatest American singer of all time and I concur with that.  I’ve wanted to honor Sinatra for the longest time, ever since I posted a Dean Martin appreciation way back when I started my blog in 2013.  What’s held me back is that I could never decide what five or six songs would highlight his career.  He’s got so many, and it’s a real dilemma to choose.  But, this is the critical moment to honor Francis Albert Sinatra, and so whatever choices I make will have to be for better or worse.

Not only is it tough to decide which songs to select, but how do I arrange the selection?  Do I try to pick one from each section of his storied career?  I hate to be handcuffed that way.  Some of my favorites would slip through.  Do I try to pick a song from each of the various types of songs he sings?  Do I try to pick songs where I can highlight different singing skills he displays?  I could never make up my mind.  So, I’m just going to pick what I like but are not all of the same type and go from there.  If you want to read the various phases of his career, and the noted songs in that phase, read the Sinatra Wikipedia entry.  It seems comprehensive.

What makes Frank Sinatra the greatest?  In a one word answer, everything.  His persona, his presence, his song selection, his arrangement, his sensitivity to the lyrics, his emotional inflections, his articulation, his understanding of the history of the genre he sings, and of course his vocal ability.  One of his nicknames was “the Voice,” and he really does have a great tenor voice.  But it’s not just his voice.  When Sinatra puts it all together, there is an honesty that gets communicated.  Whatever he is singing, the listener believes has happened, and that is a tribute to his artistic skill.

Let me try to point out a few of those elements.  Wikipedia quotes Sinatra biographer, Tom Santopietro:

For Santopietro, Sinatra was the personification of America in the 1950s: "cocky, eye on the main chance, optimistic, and full of the sense of possibility".

Not only was Sinatra a personification of America during his peak era, I would say that his persona came from his “New Yorkness.”  New York City in the 1950’s was at its height, the pinnacle of the cities in the United States (it still is, but the others have caught up) and being in post WWII America, New York City was the pinnacle of cities around the world.  “The capital of the world” as some called it.  Americans, but especially New Yorkers, were after the second world war brassy, sure of themselves, dashing, and sophisticated, the very things that make Sinatra’s persona stand out.  There’s no better example of that then “I’ve Got the World on a String.” 

Now that song wasn’t written for Sinatra.  In fact it had been around for over twenty years when Sinatra recorded it, but Sinatra transforms it.  It becomes his.

Notice the sensitivity to the words to “The Way You Look Tonight” and how it leads to the sense of honesty when he says, “cause I love you.” 

Listen to the articulation: the emphasis on the “k” in “look tonight;” the “v” in “lovely;” the “wr” in “wrinkles your nose;” and the “f” in “foolish heart.”  Usually it’s the vowels that allow the singer to express emotion, and Sinatra does that here too, but here he uses the consonants as well.  And it all leads to a sense of conviction.  Normally a cliché such as “cause I love you” in a song generates a sense of phony artifice or over sentimentalizing, but Sinatra makes it true. You believe him. 

“The Way You Look Tonight” is a song from what is called the Great American Song Book,  a loosely defined collection of songs from the great American composers of the early part of the 20^th century.  Sinatra’s renditions of the Great American Song Book songs almost all have become the standard rendition.  No other version of “The Way You Look Tonight” stacks up to Frank’s. 

Part of what made Sinatra the greatest of the American singers is his conscious song selection from American music, either from the blues and jazz of black musicians to the popular big band that appealed to the white audiences.  Here in “Mood Indigo,” a Duke Ellington jazz classic, he captures the subtleties of American diction.  

What particularly catches my attention as I hear that are the nuances in – not sure if this is the right word – sonority, the resonances in his sound.  Sinatra uses every means available to create different resonances.  Obviously he resonates in his vocal box, but listen how in various places he shifts the sonority to his chest, then to deeper in his chest, to his sinuses, to his lips, to his jowls.  There is a different nuanced emotion to every shifting resonance.  It’s amazing.

Of all the elements to Sinatra’s singing that make him standout, I would say that it’s his articulation of the words—that subtle accent he speaks with.  He has a sort of ethnic accent, Italian-American yes, but a Northeastern city accent.  Some say New Jersey (Sinatra was from Hoboken, NJ), some say New York, but I would say it’s a general ethnic, second generation accent.  He combines the great American song book, which in ways traces to both black and white culture, with the 20th century immigrant experience.  He captures it all, through song selection, arrangement, and most important I think his articulation.  His articulation of the English language is not what I would call classic.  He brings over Italian crooner sensibility, especially that resonating tenor pitch, which gives a different texture than some of the other American singers of his day.  Listen to the subtle nuances of his articulation in “Come Rain or Come Shine.”

Hear the pronunciation of “came” in “came blowin’ in;”  “lingered” in “lingered there;” “sand” in “golden sand;” “new” in “the world was new,” and especially “autumn” in “the autumn wind.”  That makes it so personal and individual and distinct.  I love that song.  It just might be my favorite Sinatra song.  It simultaneously spans the emotional range of a new romantic relationship and then the loss.  Again, Frank’s singing makes it true.

I ought to have a clip of Sinatra live where you can get a sense of his stage presence.  Here is his great Count Basie song, sung I think with the actual Basie orchestra, “The Best is Yet to Come” where his voice, presence, and mannerisms generate a sense of marvelous possibility. 

I’m not a woman, but geez, I’d go on an adventure with him.  By the way, the words “The Best is Yet to Come” are on his tombstone. 

Another song that is just so Frank Sinatra is “My Way.”  One of Frank’s nicknames was “The Chairman of the Board,” which I think is a variation from all the Duke and Count and King nicknames from the jazz era.  I think of Frank, planning his career, strategizing his arrangements, conceiving his tonal pitches, as Chairman of the Board when I hear “My Way.”  In this song he looks backward rather than in the future.

I find that to be such a manly song.

For what is a man, what has he got

If not himself, then he has naught

To say the things he truly feels

And not the words of one who kneels

The record shows I took the blows

And did it my way

Frank again convinces with his voice dynamics and his resonances.  Quick story on that song.  Many years ago, as a lead engineer I was in a competition for an effort where “the powers at be” had to pick one of two designs, and I led one of them.  It was a couple of years work of designing, building, and testing.  Going into the final competition the rumor was they were going to pick the other design.  I braced myself for the loss by memorizing the words to “My Way” and I kept singing it to myself all the way through the final tests.  I had no regrets and took the blows going through with the peace of mind I did it my way.  But as it turned out, we won.

I know I said six songs, but to hell with it.  I’m going to give you two more.  Mark Styen, the Conservative columnist who started out as a music and cultural columnist, ranks to my surprise Sinatra’s “It Was a Very Good Year” as the number one song of the 20^th century.

"It Was A Very Good Year" captures his audacity. Half-a-century after its recording, it seems entirely natural, made for Frank. But it wasn't, and it took a happy accident and a transformative arrangement to match the song to the singer.

That’s another song of looking backward, a song with lots of subtle emotions, and Sinatra projects them all.  How about a forward looking one to end this post.  Is there a more optimistic, swaggering song than “New York, New York?” 

That song has all of what makes Frank Sinatra great.  Yes, he is, Frank Sinatra is “king of the hill.”

Gosh, I’ve left out so many of his other great songs: “Come Fly With me,” Old Devil Moon,” Fly Me to the Moon,” “I get a Kick Out of You.” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “Luck Be Lady,” “All or Nothing at All,” “Night and Day,” “Witchcraft,” “Nancy (with the Laughing Face),” “Love is the Tender Trap,” “That’s Life,” “One for My Baby (and One for the Road),” “In the Wee Small Hours,” “The Birth of the Blues.”  I can go on and on. 

Tell me, what are your favorite Sinatra songs?

Music Tuesday: How Deep is the Ocean by Ella Fitzgerald

Sometimes you come across an article that leaves your head scratching.  The title was certainly an eye catcher, especially for someone like me.  It came from the Wall Street Journal—the best newspaper in the country—from its Life and Culture section, and had both a musical and literary theme.  Here’s the title, “Shakespeare Expert Stephen Greenblatt on Irving Berlin: The author of 'Will in the World' sees a link to 'King Lear.'”    

Now I have said elsewhere that I hold King Lear to be the greatest play ever written.  Stephen Greenblatt is well known literary critic who among other places taught at Harvard.  Which doesn’t impress me because I’ve read some asinine essays by critics who teach at some of the most prestigious universities in the world.  Now as I checked Greenblatt’s bio I was surprised to find three interesting facts.  He was a co-editor to Norton’s Anthology of English Literature  which is probably the most widely used anthology of English Literature across colleges in the United States.  (Perhaps it’s used overseas as well, I just don’t know.)  Mr. Greenblatt was president of MLA, the Modern Language Association, the most prestigious literary/language affiliation in the country.  Those two facts alone put him in the major leagues of literary criticism.

And then there was the third fact, that he was one of the founders of NewHistoricism, a critical approach to literature that became popular in the 1990s and into the early 2000s.  I’m not going to go into it here, but suffice it to say that I strongly oppose the approach of the New Historicists.  I made myself stand out in my last college class in Grad school, where I strongly argued against it and its methodology, all the while as the professor pushed it upon the class.  In the end she respected my opinion, held me to be the best student in the class (she told me outside of class), and easily gave me an A.  You can read some of the opposition to New Historicism in that Wikipedia entry.  But even that doesn’t do the criticism justice.  For instance, New Historicism holds that every piece of text, no matter what its context, is of equal value.  So then, if we had Shakespeare’ laundry list, it would have equal literary value as his King Lear.  So why bother would King Lear?  That might be one of the more minor idiocies of New Historicism, but it’s one easy to articulate and grasp.  So much for professors that teach at Harvard.

So getting back to the Wall Street Journal article, what exactly is Greenblatt’s point?  He has a particular affection for an Irving Berlin  song, “How Deep Is the Ocean.”  Now I didn’t ever recall having heard the song, but when I checked on my itunes list, there it was sung by Dinah Washington.  Here’s what Greenblatt says of the song.

 "How Deep Is the Ocean" [by Irving Berlin] is an unusual love song. All of the lyrics are posed as questions, except for "I'll tell you no lie." Each question conveys emotional intensity—whether posed from parent to child or between two lovers: "How far would I travel, to be where you are? / How far is the journey, from here to a star?" The questions are meant to express love, but there's also anxiety in the song over the possibility of lost love and more than a hint of pressure on the recipient to reciprocate.

After now hearing close to a dozen versions of the song, I have to say the song is a classic.  Like so many of the Great American Songbook of songs, it’s so simple and heartfelt.  Greenblatt’s right, the questions coming one after another really does create a particular tension, the least of which is a circling toward the center of the emotion.  Here are the lyrics, minus the opening set of questions that most singers leave off.

How much do I love you?

 I'll tell you no lie

 How deep is the ocean?

 How high is the sky?

How many times a day

 Do I think of you?

 How many roses

 Are sprinkled with dew?

How far would I travel

 To be where you are?

 How far is the journey

 From here to a star?

And if I ever lost you

 How much would I cry?

 How deep is the ocean?

 How high is the sky?

So how, may you ask, does this relate to King Lear?  Mr. Greenblatt says:

Actually, Berlin's lyrics strike me as a strange, inverted version of Shakespeare's "King Lear." Early on, Lear asks his three daughters, "Which of you shall we say doth love us most?" "Lear" is built around an aging father's extortion of love. Two of his three daughters flatter him to get his estate, but the third, Cordelia, refuses to say what he wants to hear. When Lear asks her what more she has to say about her love for him, Cordelia replies, "Nothing." To which Lear says, "Nothing will come of nothing." Berlin's lyrics are less forthright but just as emotionally charged.

It took me a little while for me to get exactly what he was saying.  Drum roll, please.  What he is saying is that Lear’s question of “Which of you shall we say doth love us most?" is related to the song’s question, “How much do I love you?”  That’s it?  Yeah, that’s it.  How many questions with the word love in it have been articulated in history?  Probably millions.  Big deal that the questions are similar in a mirrored sort of way?   I doubt Berlin had Lear’s question on his mind when he wrote the song.  If anything, the BeeGees song, “How Deep is Your Love” echoes King Lear’s question than this song.  That’s my head scratching moment.  So much for Harvard professors. 

Nonetheless I really did enjoy the song, and I’m glad I got to learn it.  Greenblatt seems to particularly like the Billy Holiday version.  Personally I think she sings it too upbeat.  Dinah Washington’s version is probably closer to how Berlin intended.  But of all the versions I heard, I fell in love with Ella Fitzgerald’s version.  She slows it down, allowing each phrase to seem like it’s thought out at the moment and weighed inside the heart. 

Plus that tenor sax seems so sad and compliment Fitzgerald’s tone and lower register.  I love it!

Faith Filled Friday: God Bless America

Of course you know today is the Fourth of July, our national day of independence.  From what I understand, we Americans tend to be more overtly patriotic than people of other countries.  Whether that means we love our country more than others love theirs I am not certain.  Dante in his Purgatorio links love of one’s fellow citizen as a special part of loving one’s neighbor.  So I can’t imagine people from other countries are not patriotic, since within all of humanity God has instilled love of neighbor.  But our American demonstrative patriotism surely doesn’t mean we love our country less.  We place flags in the front of our homes; every year infinite versions of our history are rewritten and sold;, we idolize our founding fathers; of the ten national holidays, seven reflect our history: Martin Luther King’s Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day, and Thanksgiving; we are forced to memorize parts of our founding documents; we mutter the pledge of allegiance in school every morning; and we have a variety of national songs articulating the praises of our fair land. 

Of our national songs, three I would say have been institutionalized as songs that are part of our civil consciousness.  There is "The Star Spangled Banner," our national anthem, with its intricate melodic shifts and intricate lyrics, which is no surprise since the song was derived from a poem.  There is "America the Beautiful," which I think has the most beautiful melody of the patriotic songs.  And then there is "God Bless America" which is the simplest of all the songs, both in melody and lyrics.  It is so simple that one thinks, how could that be make it so big and so engrained in our identity?  The song was written back in 1918 by Irving Berlin, who wrote so many of what became known as the American Songbook of songs, and it was made popular by Kate Smith, “the first lady of radio” who made it her signature song.  The song—so fitting for one of my Faith Filled Friday posts—is a prayer, displaying the simplicity of a request to our Creator.

 

God bless America,

Land that I love,

Stand beside her, and guide her

Through the night with a light from above.

From the mountains, to the prairies,

To the oceans, white with foam

God bless America, My home sweet home

God bless America, My home sweet home.

 

That’s the whole song.  But I have to say my heart just wraps around the song.  Is it the invocation of God?  Is it the humility in the petition for guidance?  Is it the cross continental embrace from the west coast to Rocky Mountains to the Midwest to the Atlantic Ocean?  Is it the simple expression of love for this abstract entity we call our nation?  It’s all of that, but I can tell you my lips quiver every time I get to the part “My home sweet home.”  God, humility, continent, love of country seem to congeal into my home.  There is something archetypical about this song.   

I’m going to embed three versions which grabbed me as I started searching for the perfect rendition.  The first is a cappella by Sgt Christine Permenter, part of a some Army band, and she sings it live at last year’s Baseball World Series.  I love the way she sings it in a lower female register. 

 

 

And then I have to say I really love Celine Dion’s version.  This was recorded post 9-11.  She slows the tempo down a notch and the arrangement is exquisite.  Here’s a clip with notable quotes from our history. 

 

 

And finally, one has to end with the signature version, the Kate Smith version.  Frank Sinatra said something to the effect (don’t exactly quote me) that Kate Smith was the singer whose voice he most envied.

 

 

Hmm, all three versions I most admired were by female singers.  Does this song suit a woman’s voice best?  Or is it my ear that is tuned to a woman singing it?  I don’t know.

 

With God’s blessing, have a happy Fourth of July.

 

Music Tuesday: "Bye Bye Blackbird" by Sammy Davis Jr.

I love this old American Songbook classic, and in my search to find the perfect rendition, I could not find a better version than Sammy Davis, Jr.'s.  I was listening to a collection from Sammy and when this song came on, it blew me away.  The song actually goes back to 1926, and every major American crooner has recorded it, even as recently as Paul McCartney, who of course is not an American.  What Davis does differently is arrange a standup bass around his vocals and sings it in a lower range.  He trusts his voice with the reduced instrumentation and it doesn't fail.  He's perfect.  I now associate this song with Sammy Davis, Jr.  
 

I just wished he would go on longer. 

Music Tuesday: "The Way You Look Tonite" By Frank Sinatra

I was at a wedding this weekend, and as in most weddings quite a few of Frank Sinatra's music is played.  I love Franky.  He's my all time favorite singer in any music genre, truly the finest American singer that I can think of.  I can listen to Sinatra all night long.  So here's one.

 

 

Some day, when I'm awfully low,
When the world is cold,
I will feel a glow just thinking of you...
And the way you look tonight.

Yes you're lovely, with your smile so warm
And your cheeks so soft,
There is nothing for me but to love you,
And the way you look tonight.

With each word your tenderness grows,
Tearing my fear apart...
And that laugh that wrinkles your nose,
It touches my foolish heart.

Lovely ... Never, ever change.
Keep that breathless charm.
Won't you please arrange it ?
'Cause I love you ... Just the way you look tonight.

Mm, Mm, Mm, Mm,
Just the way you look to-night.

 



Dean Martin Appreciation

Jan at Runs With Angels…Lives With Saints asks if you like Dean Martin.

 

Raise your hand if you love Dean Martin… I knew it! Everyone loves Dean Martin except College Girl – she thinks Frank Sinatra is better. But even she likes Dean Martin.

 Well, I most decidedly love Dean Martin, but I do have to say that Frank Sinatra is the greatest singer of what I guess is called American Popular Song.  Besides the better voice, Sinatra’s articulation has a much wider expressive range.  But Dean Martin I think is vastly underrated, and that’s what this blog is about, appreciating Dino.

 What strikes me about Dean Martin is that he projects a nice guy in his voice.  He’s not the star quarterback type say like Elvis where girls just throw themselves toward him.  He’s the type whom girls feel comfortable with, and are most definitely attracted to, but fathers would prefer their daughters marry someone else.  Why?  Well, I can’t help feeling this, but he projects someone who doesn’t work very hard and ultimately will be a failure in life.  He’s so laid back, so relaxed in his tone, that the pleasure of a glass of wine or two or three are more important than getting to work.  There’s a passivity to his voice—he doesn’t sound like he’s out to grab the world by the throat—and the songs where he excels are those where the lyrics accentuate the passivity in his tone.  Take “That’s Amore.”

When the moon hits your eye

Like a big pizza pie, that's amore

That's amore

When the world seems to shine

Like you've had too much wine, that's amore

That's amore

“When the moon hits your eye” is a passive event, an outside object effecting the person.  It’s not like the singer went out to find love, it found him, possibly while crossing a restaurant with a glass of wine and some pretty girl stumbles into you and spills the wine across your jacket.   It’s like low and behold, what just happened?  Here’s this marvelous song.

 
Also notice how the humor and, even more so, the lack of seriousness adds to the sense of a lack of ambition.  Love is compared to a big pizza pie hitting you in the eye!  LOL!  That’s not very deep.  There have been great philosophers who have pondered love, but Dino aint going anywhere near them.  But that’s Dean.  I love the way there’s a sort of chuckle in his articulation on those silly lines.  He knows he’s not serious, but why should it be serious?  And notice how he embellishes “Vita bella” at the 45 second mark as if that is all that’s important in life.

 Now I have no idea whether Dean Martin's personal life was so laid back, unserious, and sensualist, but that's the singing persona I pick up.  He certainly was no personal failure.  Here’s another great song, perhaps his best in the way phrases lines. 

 

Again, the passivity—luck just found him and love kicked him—but I think what he does so great here is that split note of pause between most of the phrases leading up to his life going to be “Beee-uuu-ti-fuuul.”  He really sells that beautiful life in the sun-shine.

 And then nothing projects failure as “Little Old Wine Drinker Me.”  While the song doesn’t actually say it, but one can’t help feel that the drinking was part of the problem.  After all, he’s the wine drinker fool in the corner.  But it’s a sophisticating drinking.  He’s not sucking down beers or whiskey but wine, someone who just likes to enjoy life a bit too much and probably drove his girl to the brink. 

 

 

Well, there are other great songs.  I particularly like “Volare,” “Mambo Italiano,” “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You,” “In the Chapel in the Moonlight,” and “Sway.”  Which ones do you like?