Ellington
Gershwin
Joplin
Posted on 12/12/2006 8:17:45 AM PST by Valin
Live at the Sands with Count Basie
Come Fly With Me -- so many great hits.
I have quite a bit of his work on CD. It's really wonderful.
One of Sinatra's secrets was his ability to take breaths at odd sequences in a song. He never did it when it was expected. Singers have long marveled at his ability.
I have always found "It Was A Very Good Year" to be the most depressing song. My favorite Sinatra song was "Yetta, I Can't Forgetta"
It's Frank's world, we just get to live in it.
Italian households with portraits in ascending order.
JFK
The Pope
Jesus
Sinatra
Thanks for posting. I love Sinatra's music. I read a biography on Frank, fascinating life story.
Possibly Dylan but Armstrong's in a completely different bag so he's not relevant to the discussion.
However, Dylan acknowledged his debt to Sinatra.
Where wouold Sinatra be without Sammy Cahn?
"I have always found "It Was A Very Good Year" to be the most depressing song."
__________________________________________________________
As a young man I loved this song when it first came out.
Today, I find it depressing also.
I guess it all depends on which verse I'm living in.
(2) Crosby was important for showing that amplification allowed singers to perform in a conversational, intimate tone. A lot of singers who recorded before Crosby sound like they are shouting out announcements at the top of their lungs.
(3) I agree that Armstrong and Dylan are more important than Crosby. So was Holiday. So was Peggy Lee for that matter.
I'm not so enamored with Frankie. In World War II, most of the GIs had nothing but contempt for his draft dodging. He couldn't go to war, but he could fight it on a safe sound-stage in Hollywood. Kind of a coward, you might say, just like George Hamilton, Sylvester Stallone, Cassius Clay, Bruce Springstein, etc., did during Vietnam. Cowards all.
Add to that the disgusting treatment of Marilyn Monroe that he and the Kennedys did before her suicide/murder.
So, he might be a lovable teddy bear to a lot of folks, but some things can't be overlooked.
Happy Birthday to the Chairman of the Board.
Frank Sinatra considered himself a jazz singer, and Sinatra's behind-the-beat, ahead-of-the-beat virtuosic phrasing - the "swing" in his delivery - comes directly from Louis Armstrong who invented the style.
I can't think of a musician more relevant to a discussion of Sinatra than Armstrong.
I'm listening online to Billie right now. Oops, now it's Rod Stewart singing "Time After Time."
http://www.martiniinthemorning.com/Listen_Live_To_Martini_In_The_Morning.htm
I think Bobby Darin is really underrated compared to the other great singers. He was so versatile in his ability to sing multiple genres so convincingly.
That sentence should read something like the most important popular music figure of the SECOND HALF OF THE 20th century.
There were guys like John Philip Sousa, Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, the Dorsey Brothers, the Gershwin brothers, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein, etc etc etc, who dominated the first 50 or 60 years of the century.
Clay didn't dodge the Draft he stayed and took the consequences.
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