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| A young man growing up in the 1980s on Long Island in a middle-class Jewish family that ignored the wide world of jazz did not often run into Frank Sinatra. If he did encounter him, it was usually in the form of Joe Piscopo (who?) doing an impression on Saturday Night Live of an old, scotch-swilling, mobbed-up tough-guy. Or this particular Long Island boy would hear the song "New York, New York" overplayed, especially at the end of winning Yankee games, which was not a good association, since this Long Island boy hates the Yankees. For the remainder of the ‘80s and into the early ‘90s, Sinatra's image didn't improve. He just got older. The media mercilessly showed us sad images of a man past his prime, entrenched in a tired Vegas act, doobie-doobie-dooing his way through lyrics he had sung thousands of times and yet somehow couldn't remember. But an older generation of fans had known a different Sinatra. They knew the suave, blue-eyed, slender Frank—the man who crooned ballads to screaming female audiences, who danced, sang and acted in movies—a man who under all circumstances was supremely cool. They knew a Sinatra who possessed that voice, which Nelson Riddle compared to the sonorous tones of a viola. Forget the Rat Pack, forget the kitschy, forget Caesar's Palace, forget the whole mob-delivering-the-1960-election-in-Chicago-for-Jack-Kennedy-on-Frankie's-say-so thing, forget that Mia Farrow abusiveness thing. Take that all away and you still have the voice. Man, that cat could sing. So this Long Island boy got older and started discovering jazz, especially bebop and classic small-group jazz. And that's all I listened to until I started tuning into the greatest jazz radio station in the world, WBGO Jazz 88.3 FM, out of Newark, New Jersey (you can pick it up in New York City, where I live). It was while listening to WBGO that I discovered Duke Ellington and Count Basie's great big-band swing music. A WBGO Sunday afternoon program entitled “Singers Unlimited” introduced me to Ella and Bessie and Billie and Hendricks and all the other singing greats. I noticed that Sinatra popped up sometimes, and that the DJ gushed over songs like "I've Got You Under My Skin" and "All of Me." I had listened to those songs, but still, I resisted them. To my ironic, unfortunately postmodern ear, Sinatra—though obviously not bad—also sang such old saws as "My Way" and "Strangers in the Night," way over-enunciating his vowels. I struggled against Ol' Blue Eyes, deciding that he was just not artistic enough. But at about the same time, postmodernism itself rehabilitated Sinatra. While he was close to death as both a living person and a symbol, pop culture's pendulum swung back (as it always does), and the swing craze of the ‘90s happened. Neo-swingsters started loudly singing the praises of the Rat Pack. The movie "Swingers" gave the movement a larger audience. Bombarded with new evidence of Sinatra's coolness, I was ready to really hear his music. The time had come to buy my first Sinatra CD. But which one, I wondered? The consensus seemed to be 1956’s Songs for Swingin' Lovers. The title is a reference to an album released earlier that same year, Songs for Young Lovers, a late-night classic filled with ballads arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle, with whom Sinatra had only been working for a few years at Capitol Records. That album had been a hit, so they decided to follow it up with a record of dance music (some songs for swingin' lovers). While the expression “swinging lovers” has taken on an entirely new meaning over the past 40 years, back in 1956, “swingin' lovers” simply referenced those who were hip enough to dig Sinatra and Riddle's cool (and danceable) interpretations. Today Sinatra is even regarded by young people as one of the greatest singers ever. But still, until recently, I had one reservation: listening to Frank Sinatra makes you feel so good. Any devotee of Miles Davis and his introspective Kind of Blue muted-trumpet sound might have a hard time reconciling himself with these songs. Swinging lovers aren't pensive, nor do they get blue. They're too busy swinging, whether that means dancing or having sex, or just, well, swinging. And because these songs sound so effortless, it seems that Frank never paused to think too hard. It’s as if he just plows through all the key songbooks: Porter, Gershwin, Mercer, Kahn, etc., with supreme cockiness, sure in his ability to record the ultimate version of any given standard. But when you listen to this album (again and again), and hear the superb renditions of "You Make Me Feel So Young," "Love Is Here to Stay," and "How About You?" they'll never get out of your head. Sinatra did, in once sense, make the “best” versions of these songs. Sure, Billie Holiday's "Love Is Here to Stay" can make you feel melancholy, mourning for love lost. But Frankie doesn't do that. With Riddle’s big string orchestra behind him, and with the ecstatic horn section blaring, he plays the tunes totally on the level. Flouting everything that comes after him, the words mean what they say. These songs for swinging lovers still offer us something rare in today’s world, where it's hard to take anything at face value. It's perhaps Sinatra's most amazing accomplishment. According to Riddle, Sinatra did not just dash off these songs. On the contrary, he was a perfectionist, demanding from his orchestra what he demanded from himself: a hard-driving attitude and tireless work ethic that would spice up a song and make it tight. And you hear it, particularly on such prime cuts as "Makin' Whoopie" and "Pennies From Heaven." Knowing about all the hard work put in, you can hear the wealth of experience behind the music, and contemplate what would be Sinatra’s long road ahead. But forgetting about all that, you can just listen to the songs, hearing only the joy in the moment. Joy and mastery. That's what Sinatra was all about. --Scott Holden Smith (email)
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