Sinatra's Radio Years

I recently bought two new CDs released to commemorate Frank Sinatra's 100th birthday. The first is a four-disc boxed set called "A Voice on Air 1935-1955" released by Columbia/Sony. The second release is a single CD only available via the Smithsonian website (http://si.edu/) called "Lost and Found - The Radio Years." They both cover the years Sinatra was active on radio, largely before he signed with Capitol Records.

Most of what’s here has never been commercially available and they cover a largely undocumented and vibrant time during Sinatra’s career. These are live broadcasts and have a freshness and spontaneity not easily captured in the recording studio. The fidelity is better than broadcast recordings from this era have any right to be. The early days of digital sound "restoration" were problematic with frequent overuse resulting in lifeless, artificial transfers that removed all the detail of the originals. These two releases are revelations in comparison. There's very little in the way of record surface noise (the bulk of these tracks were recorded live to disc) with a small handful of exceptions that remind you these are early disc recordings, not tape. The occasional surface noise that does get through is never distracting and, when noticed, kind of charming.

The overall fidelity is outstanding, that's where the real surprise is. It's very hard to believe the oldest track here is from 1935. There's a warmth and a broad, clear frequency range throughout.

Speaking of that oldest broadcast, that's another revelation. Until now, the earliest recording of Sinatra available anywhere was a live date he did with the Harry James Orchestra in July 8, 1939, a recording of "Stardust." Here the oldest recording is from September 8, 1935! It's an appearance Sinatra did with "The Hoboken Four" on the "Major Bowes Amateur Hour." Surprisingly, even though Sinatra is one of four blended singers and his voice is radically different from the older Sinatra, I have no trouble picking his vocal line out in the group.

The next oldest recording (May 12, 1937) is unusual in that Sinatra doesn't even sing! It's an appearance on "The Fred Allen Show as "Frank Sinatra and his Four Sharps" and it's an instrumental. Sinatra kibitzes a bit with Allen to introduce the song ("Exactly Like You"), but that's all you hear of him. I assume he was their vocalist, but for some reason he doesn't sing.

These releases have a lot of early-Americana charm. You get many period commercials (including for cigarettes) and frequent interruptions for war bulletins, all of which puts a great framework around these releases and fleshes out the era. There's a lot of sweet cornball humor, and a Sinatra whose voice is clear bordering on operatic, almost unrecognizable from the later Sinatra.

It's fascinating to hear Sinatra evolve from a shy, tentative - yet still outspoken - young unknown, to a confident bobby-soxer idol. You hear him stretch on these live broadcasts, occasionally ad-libbing to the squeals of the studio audiences. And those audiences! On one number, "I'll Get By" from May 6, 1944, Sinatra toys with them, teasing and flirting and making funny asides that are greeted with the kinds of worshipful squeals The Beatles might have thought they'd invented. The relaxed feel of these recordings is priceless and shows another unexpected level to this well-known singer. (Wait until you hear "Cement Mixer" with the comic jazz singer and musician Slim Gaillard, it's a gas!)

If I had to describe these releases with one simple phrase, I'd say they're sweetly charming. The performances are as enjoyable (often more) as the commercial releases he did for Columbia. In these recordings there's a sweetness, a certain naiveté maybe, or a kindness, that reflect a more innocent time.

If you're a Sinatra fan, this is obviously a must-buy. If you like popular entertainment and/or old time radio from the era, you'll love this. If you're a fan of good audio restorations, this is for you. I can't rave about these releases enough.


http://sinatrafamily.com/forum/showthread.php/48263-FRANK-SINATRA-LOST-AND-FOUND-%C2%96-THE-RADIO-YEARS-(Smithsonian-Columbia-Legacy)-2015-nbsp

https://subscribe.smithsonianmag.com/sinatracd/?no-ist=

http://www.allmusic.com/album/a-voice-on-air-1935-1955-mw0002887297

http://theseconddisc.com/2015/11/25/review-frank-sinatra-a-voice-on-air/

Bob Dylan's "Original Mono Recordings" CD Boxed Set

I have a lot of Bob Dylan records but I’m far from being a completist. Many of the early releases I’m not very familiar with, and I never picked up or heard his first album from 1962 titled “Bob Dylan.”

I’m not a huge fan of folk, though my mother played a lot of it when I was growing up and I love some of it, the more melodic stuff. I tend to prefer folk-rock, things like Simon and Garfunkel’s later recordings. I think of acoustic folk as boring in general, and pretentious at worst.

Dylan is admired for his song writing, obviously, and since his first album “Bob Dylan” is mostly covers (it only has two originals), I was never anxious to get it. I was sure at that stage in his career - he was 20 when it was released - and with so few originals, it would be boring.

In 1985, when I was in the Air Force in Hawaii, I bought the first boxed set ever put out for a popular artist, Dylan’s 5-LP “Biograph.” Got it at the Tower Records downtown in Honolulu. I still have it and it’s in great condition. It was the first time Columbia went back to Dylan’s masters and the sound was revelatory. It contains highlights from his albums and many rare B-sides and previously unreleased recordings. One of the songs is “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” from Dylan’s first album.

This is an early 2-track recording and on “Biograph’s” stereo version, everything’s panned hard left and hard right with nothing in the middle. With a 2-track recording, there aren’t a lot of options. Many early 60s albums sound weird today because of that. At the time people didn’t mind, it let them know they really had a stereo album, but those recordings were meant to be mixed down to mono. The stereo releases were afterthoughts, gimmicks. The best way to hear them is via the mono mixes. That’s why the Beatles mono vinyl boxed set was such a hit; mono was the way the band intended you to hear that early music.

The other day I picked up the 2010 mono box set of Dylan’s first eight albums on CD. These were the albums that had mono releases - I think everything later was intended for stereo - and as far as I know, the mono versions have been out of print since the originals. I’d wanted the vinyl mono box when this first came out but it was God-awful expensive, I think around $250. The CD set was pricey too, though not as bad. I recently saw a great deal on the CD box and picked it up.

I listened to the first album tonight, “Bob Dylan,” and what a shock. It’s fantastic! It’s mostly covers and it’s just Dylan’s vocals, harmonica, and guitar, but I’m stunned at how powerful and confidently executed it is. Dylan can sing “nice” when he wants to - listen to the beautiful “Lay Lady Lay” from “Nashville Skyline” as an example - so when he chooses to get gruff and gutteral, it’s deliberate. And brilliantly effective. He takes known traditional songs and reinvents them. The kid was 20-years-old, a nobody, recording for the biggest label in the country, for the first time, and he lets it rip without a hint of self-consciousness or insecurity. How did he DO that? Was it the desperate hubris of youth when you have nothing to lose and will go-for-broke to make a mark? That’s something that can push you to take chances and reach heights people often can’t as they get older. The playing, the certainty of the singing, Jesus, even the falsettos are amazing! This is a rocking album!

Here’s another interesting thing. I compared the stereo version of “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” from “Biograph” on vinyl to the mono version on the CD box and there’s no comparison; the CD blows the old vinyl out of the water. First, the CD’s in mono and sounds much better with all the music blended nicely into one point in space. But more than that, the fidelity is so much more vibrant than it is on the stereo vinyl, which sounds a bit muddy in comparison (and weird with the extreme stereo spread). I was surprised. The vinyl was sourced for the first time from the masters and is great. But this CD mono boxed set sounds much better. Were the mono mix tapes in better shape than the stereo masters? Was better technology used in the transfer for this latest release?

I’m not saying CDs sound better than vinyl, things aren’t that simple. The reason I’ll still buy CDs and never stopped buying vinyl is because done properly, they can both sound fantastic. I’d wanted this Dylan mono boxed set in vinyl, but the great price on the CD boxed set persuaded me to pick that up, and it sounds unexpectedly great.

In the end, it’s all about the ears of the engineers working on any release, whether the medium is vinyl, CD, or hi-res digital.

So the CD boxed set sounds great and Dylan’s first album sounds great. Good purchase! Now to listen to the other albums in the set…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Original_Mono_Recordings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biograph_(album)

Ruminations on the Weekend of Sinatra’s 100th Birthday

Ruminations on the Weekend of Sinatra’s 100th Birthday

Ruminations on the Weekend of Sinatra’s 100th Birthday:

It took me a while to "get" Sinatra. He wasn't part of my generation, he was of my parent's generation. I grew up with rock 'n' roll and Sinatra was not rock 'n' roll. In the 60s and 70s, when my musical idols were skinny, druggy, long-haired hippies, Sinatra was a bloated, boozy, balding mystery.

I've posted before how my father once called the teenaged me into the family room when Sinatra was doing a concert (the Main Event from MSG?). My father said, Cameron, if you want to know what class is, look at this.

I didn't get it.

My mother liked Sinatra when she was young, but she was never a bobby-soxer, and never thought he had the greatest voice(!). By fine-vocalist standards, he didn't have the clear tones of an opera singer, so I know what she meant. My mother also disliked the Cult of Sinatra. Idolatry makes her uncomfortable. I understand that too.

As a teenager, I'd look at the 1970's Sinatra and scratch my head, wondering what I was missing. To my credit I like to think that's my usual reaction, not to dismiss things I don't understand, but to try to see what other people see, then decide if a thing is for me.

I remained open minded - but perplexed - by Sinatra into my 20s. He was still getting air play then, but these were his later, more grandiose, somewhat bloated songs like "My Way" and "New York, New York.” (Interestingly, Sinatra was never a huge fan of "My Way." The braggadocio didn't appeal to him. But he knew it would be big, and he must have known the lyric fit his image.) Those were the songs I heard when I was younger, and they didn’t make me a fan.

In high school I got into theater and acting, and spent a summer in summer-stock as an apprentice at 16, so I became familiar with some of the great musical theater compositions. I learned what it meant to convey the lyrics, the meaning of a song. I soon became interested in music other than rock and pop. I remember liking some classical symphonic music because it could be full of drama and power, and jazz began to intrigue me.

In the Air Force I met and became good friends with a guy named Pete Cosmos who’d dropped out of college before his final semester - he was studying music - and joined the Air Force (I never fully understood that). He was a fantastic jazz guitarist and I learned a lot about jazz and music from him. Pete loved singers and raved about Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra. He would talk about how they were true musicians.

Huh?

Clearly there was something I was missing.

One day when I was home on leave - or maybe I'd already moved back to finish college - I pulled one of my father's Sinatra albums out of his collection and put it on. It was either the twofer "Swing Easy!/Songs for Young Lovers" or the timeless and brilliant "Songs for Swingin' Lovers," both recorded for Capitol Records in the early 50s. Nelson Riddle contributed arrangements to both.

I remember listening to the record and thinking, "Holy shit, how come I never heard this before? This is FANTASTIC!" I wanted to tell all my friends about this amazing music I'd just discovered… which was over 30 years old.

I was hooked.

At the time it was the music that got me, the arrangements and the tunes and Sinatra’s phrasing and rhythmic sense, rather than his way with a lyric. I’d play the songs over and over and still couldn't sing along with them, couldn’t hit Sinatra's beats, couldn't duplicate when he'd come in or how long he'd hold a note. What I heard was so effortlessly natural it seemed like the only correct way to sing, but when I'd try to sing along, I realized how musically original and inventive that phrasing was. That's a real musician, someone who understands how to use the musical and rhythmic aspects of his voice to support what the melody is doing, what the arrangement and band are doing.

It didn't take long to understand the power of Sinatra's interpretations too, his ability to communicate a song so directly you thought he was confessing his inner-most self to you. He SPOKE to you. There are Sinatra recordings I find difficult to listen to because they sound so intimate, so personal, it’s like I’m eavesdropping. One of the greats for me along those lines is “It Was A Very Good Year.” Somehow Sinatra takes someone else’s lyric and convinces you he’s talking about his most personal memories. You believe he’s singing about himself.

How does he do that?

If Sinatra's later recordings are less inspiring, it's partly because the songs began to let him down. Popular music changed and the old songwriters began to disappear. Modern music wasn't the same lyrically, and fewer and fewer told the stories Sinatra was born to tell.

For me, Sinatra was an interpretive singer above all else. That was his greatness and his brilliance, it was the art which no one has ever bettered. The other aspects of his career never quite reached the same heights (for me). He could be a great actor, as "From Here to Eternity" and others - "The Man With a Golden Arm" and “The Manchurian Candidate" - show, but he was never going to be a “great" actor. He was too impatient and I don't think he was born with the soul of the best actors. I also didn't care for his TV appearances, the specials that mixed singing with humor and comedy sketches. Sinatra didn’t have a real talent for comedy. His humor had too much hostility, too many sharp edges, an undercurrent of meanness. He never seemed fully comfortable on TV... unless he was singing. When he sang, he became something special.

When I saw him perform live (the only time) at the end of his career, there was an electricity, a magnetism, a magic in the house I'd never experienced before or since. The performance, for all his later-day limitations, was something magical and great. He didn’t sing for long, maybe an hour, but it was the most bang for the buck I've ever had. From the moment he stepped out on the stage, you felt it, this sense of greatness. I can't describe it but I felt it, and I remember it vividly to this day. This may sound strange, but it was an honor to be in that audience.

I've been married three times. The first time stupidly, in the Air Force, and I moved out after two months. The second time I was 30 and it too was a struggle. I tried to make it work, but after seven years I again left. I've been married to Melanie Hanlon for almost six years (I finally got it right) and my one regret is I saw Sinatra with my 2nd wife instead of with Melanie; it's a memory I so wish I could share with her.

There’s no question Sinatra had his faults. We idolize our heroes, but they’re not Gods, they’re people, and people come flawed. It’s been said he was overly sensitive and felt things too deeply, and that may have lead to him lashing out at people. Being overly sensitive means feeling like you’re being attacked when you’re not, and maybe reacting with hostility in self-defense; that's not justified. There’s no question Sinatra often drank too much and, like many people, he could get mean when he was drunk, sometimes violently so. And there’s no question he was attracted to the wrong people and admired bullies with power, the mafia. All these things are true.

But what makes someone great is when they rise above their limitations and reveal an art that transcends. In a way, having limitations makes their achievements all the more remarkable. I can recognize Sinatra’s faults and I don’t think I would have liked the man very much, but I also recognize the brilliance of his talent, and I’m in awe of it. He showed us what it is to fully inhabit a song and deliver the lyrics with truth, with life, and not with stylized, pretty artifice.

There’s truth in Sinatra’s recordings.

Happy 100th, Francis. Thanks for the great and timeless music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sinatra

The Martian - 2015 Film

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(film)




I saw an early screening of Ridley Scott's "The Martian" last night courtesy of the New York Times Film Club and absolutely loved it. This is the best movie I've seen in a while. I recently read the book it's based on (the genesis and publication of which is a story in itself) and loved that too. It was one of the few books I've read where I was disappointed it ended.

The movie sticks close to the book sans a few obstacles, no doubt to keep the running time manageable (it clocks in at 2:21). It stars Matt Damon who's on screen alone for much of the movie (he documents his activities via a video log so we hear him describe the things he’s attempting and the causes of his mishaps), but it never gets old because of the charisma of his character.

The story is, Damon is part of a Mars team living on the surface collecting rock and soil samples to bring back to earth. There's a sort of mother ship orbiting the red planet and when the mission is over, the crew will depart in a rocket called the MAV and rendezvous with the Hermes for their return trip. When a fierce storm arises, they're forced to end the mission early. As they make their way to the MAV, Damon is impaled by an antenna flying away in the storm and presumed dead. The crew leaves him behind.

Of course, Damon is still alive. His bio-sensors were broken so it looked to the crew monitoring him like he died. The antenna which pierced his suit and impaled him created a hole through which his oxygen escaped, but his blood loss sealed the hole and protected him. He wakes up alone on Mars.

What follows is a classic survival and find-your-way-home story, and it's riveting. With each crisis, we watch Damon solve problems through science and engineering (“I'm gonna’ have to science the shit out of this”). When he realizes he'll run out of food, he finds a way to generate water and grow potatoes (from potatoes in the crew’s food supplies) in one of the small habitations. His use of fertilizer is funny, ingenious, and it would really work. He's without communication with Earth for the beginning of the movie (remember the broken antenna?), then solves that problem in a brilliant way and regains contact. What's great about this movie is the action is believable. By avoiding pseudo-science, the movie emphasizes the real human struggle and ingenuity of the character.

We follow Damon through successes and failures as he struggles to stay alive long enough for a future mission to pick him up. It's in 3D and is one of the best uses of the technology I've seen, it’s subtle and effective. The vistas of Mars are wonderful to look at, and the 3D enhances the action without ever getting in the way of it. It was also easy to adjust to and follow. Often 3D is distracting and hard to focus on. Not here. If you see this one (and you should), try for a 3D screening.

There are mild flaws in the movie – more of the book’s obstacles would have been effective, and at times you doubt real astronauts would do some of the things they do here (crawling along the outside of a ship in space un-tethered) – but these truly are minor quibbles in a fantastic film.

Melanie wasn't able to go with me to this one, but I'll happily see it again just so I can take her to it.

The Beatles' "Help!"

This will be a Beatles post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help!_(album)

People talk about The Beatles’ artistic growth with 1965’s “Rubber Soul” and, to me the better album, 1966’s “Revolver.” That’s when they moved away from the “I Want To Hold Your Hand” songs into music and lyrics a bit more thoughtful, a bit more mature.

But no one ever considers the album that remains one of my favorites, the one preceding “Rubber Soul,” the “Help!” album.

“Help!” was released in 1965, the same year as “Rubber Soul,” and I hear a lot of the same elements in both records. Maybe “Help!” is overlooked because it’s “just” a “soundtrack” album? Maybe to some people that means it doesn’t count?

If so, you need to re-evaluate.

“Help!” is a wonderful transitional album. It’s The Beatles moving away from the pop/rock hits that established them, into more personal songs. John Lennon admitted this, saying the song “Help!” was an autobiographical expression of his state of mind. But just look at the lineup on this album and tell me it’s an inconsequential album:

• The Night Before
• You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
• Another Girl
• You're Going to Lose That Girl
• Ticket to Ride
• I've Just Seen a Face
• Yesterday

How is it possible people dismiss this album?

Maybe it's because the US release of the album had a Side A of Beatles songs, and a Side B of instrumental tracks from the movie. But the UK version of "Help!" is the one to get, all Beatles tracks. (The current US release now matches the original UK release.)

The first few Beatles albums were great, but they were great in youth, energy, immaculate organic rock and roll, and enthusiasm. The fourth one doesn’t do much for me, “Beatles For Sale.” Some disagree. My friend Todd Fredericks comes to mind. He has a fantastic-sounding early pressing of this. But musically the album seems like a lull to me, a weary obligation during an overworked period.

After “Beatles For Sale” the band seems to have rested up for a bit, then filmed and recorded “Help!”

I read an article yesterday or the day before criticizing “Help!” This is my answer to that writer, whoever he is (I forget where I read it). "Help!" is an essential Beatles album, and remains one of my personal favorites.

Jimmy's Hall - 2015 Film

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy%27s_Hall

Melanie and I saw "Jimmy's Hall" last night at the Angelika and we didn't think much of it, which seems to put us in the minority. We found it unrealized and vague.

The film is about Jimmy who returns to Ireland in the early 1930s after being in New York for ten years. During the first 20 minutes of the film we learn he left because of controversy over a sort of public meeting hall he helped fix up. When he returns the locals convince him to get the hall back in shape because they have no place to socialize and have fun.

The conservatives in the town and the Catholic church especially hate Jimmy for it because they're threatened for some reason by it. They call him and the people that hang out in the hall communists, even though the hall is for the most part just a place to socialize, dance, play and listen to music, and learn things. The figure of Jimmy is not especially political and you wonder what the fuss is all about. True, it was a different time, but the movie seems to be missing things to explain the aversion everyone has.

As usual the Catholic church is depicted as cruel and power-mongering, but to what point? The whole movie left me scratching my head, thinking, "So?" Clearly others disagree and seem to enjoy the movie, but I can't really recommend it. I liked the actor Barry Ward in the lead, even though his character like all the rest isn't very fleshed out. The movie has a lot going for it - great look, interesting time period and location, interesting subject matter - but it doesn't really come together.

"Lambert & Stamp" Documentary

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lambert_and_stamp/

We saw the documentary “Lambert & Stamp” the other night about the first managers of The Who. Amazing movie. It resonates.

The movie is about The Who’s first great management team, two guys who shaped them and helped them become the band they became. If George Martin was the fifth Beatle, Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert were the fifth and sixth Whos.

This is such an enjoyable film. Great early footage of The Who - while they were still calling themselves The High Numbers - and candid interviews describing the efforts that went into making the band successful. It’s about collaborative relationships, and about Mod England in the early 60s. Great early footage in Cinéma Vérité style, with informative modern interviews to flesh out the story. Fantastic.
Perfect? No. As documentaries go, this one does confuse at times. You're not always sure who people are and how they relate to the bigger picture. Irish Jack is a good example. We see footage of him dancing at an early Who appearance - or High Numbers appearance I think - then in present day reading from what appears to be a memoir he wrote about the band and the era. But who is he exactly? We're not told. Other characters drift in and out without much explanation, and that is at times bewildering.

But as Spencer Tracey once said of Katherine Hepburn (in "Pat and Mike"), "Not much meat on her, but what there is, is cherce."

That's this flick. Check 'er out.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lambert_and_stamp/