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
