It proved an intoxicating experience for the young singer, as well as a powerful catalyst. S inatra began his professional life at a crucial time in the history of the entertainment arts. Advances in technology — including improvements in recording science, the influence of radio and the spread of jukeboxes and home phonographs — were changing how music might be heard and preserved. The most important of these changes was a fairly recent one: the prevailing use of microphones by popular singers.
Those sorts of methods forced vocalists into high volumes, upper ranges and, sometimes, unnatural tones. Belters like Sophie Tucker and Al Jolson used those limitations to a spectacular but showy effect.
Indeed, a singer could now vocalize in the same intimate tone and manner as one might use while confiding to a friend, or to a lover in bed — and the effect of that new intimacy was electrifying to listeners.
In , after he had left the Hoboken Four and was touring briefly with Harry James and his orchestra, Sinatra was already beginning to improve his microphone technique. Dorsey could be a sublime soloist, playing musical passages that stretched for many bars in a smooth and continuous line, seemingly without pause for breath. Dorsey made it look effortless, and Sinatra studied the bandleader closely as he played, trying to figure out how he timed his breathing.
He began taking long swims, holding and modulating his breath underwater as he played song lyrics in his head.
After a few months, he redefined his phrasing. He was now able, like Dorsey, to execute long passages without a pause. He was singing in a manner that had not been heard before, and he was now eager to step outside his role as a big-band vocalist and establish himself as a solo artist.
At first, Goodman had no idea who Sinatra was. He ended up agreeing to the request, but he gave Sinatra last billing. By the time of the opening show, on December 30th, , a crowd of 5, was crammed into the Paramount Goodman and Sinatra performed several shows throughout the day. The audience was mainly made up of teenage girls, known as bobby-soxers for the white socks they favored. When Sinatra walked onstage, the theater exploded with the shrieks of young women. What the hell was that?
Goodman asked, looking at Sinatra. The sound was so deafening that even Sinatra was momentarily stunned. Then he laughed, giddy at the thrill of it, stepped up to the microphone, wrapped his hands around the stand, leaned toward the crowd and moved into For Me and My Gal. The pandemonium became so furious that, according to comedian Jack Benny, present that day, there were fears that the building might collapse.
It was the first sizable moment of adolescent pop-culture fervor that America would see, and it became immediate news around the country.
The big-band era was effectively finished, and a new era of pop-vocal heroes was fast on its way. That shift would have a tremendous impact that lingers to this day — and nobody made that transition more possible, or would imbue it with as much artistic potential, as Frank Sinatra. T he s were an era full of big hopes and bigger perils. The nation had recovered from the long, devastating Depression of the s, but it was now enmeshed in a high-stakes world war in Europe and Asia.
In the midst of these years of risk — in this time of possible ruin or rebirth — America found its favorite voice in a fragile-looking romantic balladeer.
No doubt part of what Frank Sinatra offered to his audience was the allure of a pleasant diversion during dark nights of uncertainty. Sinatra was a sign that America had a promising outlook: There were still great songs and exhilarating nights to come, and the last dance was a long way off. In , Sinatra was a guest at President Franklin D. In part the decline simply had to do with shifting musical tastes: In the elation of the postwar period, a new audience wanted more verve than the light-voiced Sinatra now seemed capable of.
In addition, Sinatra alienated many of his remaining supporters in a matter of personal conduct. In , Sinatra had married his longtime girlfriend, Nancy Barbato, and the couple would have three children: Nancy, Frank Jr. But Sinatra had an eager eye, and there were rumors that he saw numerous women during his roadshows.
When Sinatra began a steamy public affair with actress Ava Gardner, the press was outraged, and so were many of his fans. Sinatra divorced Nancy and, in , married Gardner. After that, no record companies would take a chance on Sinatra. He was back to the club circuit, trying to recapture the voice, confidence and following that had once come so readily. In , Capitol Records agreed to a one-year contract with Sinatra — if the artist was willing to pay his own studio costs.
With his first few sessions for the label, Sinatra surprised both critics and former fans by flaunting a new voice, which seemed to carry more depth, more worldly insight and rhythmic invention, than the half-fragile tone he had brandished in the s. In addition, Sinatra became one of the first pop artists to take advantage of the possibilities offered by the new format of long-playing records.
LPs could hold more than forty-five minutes of music in near-continuous play, which meant that a performer could dwell on a mood until it might give up no other revelations. Or, if the artist chose, he might even use the extended format to construct a character study or share an ongoing story. He took supremely mellifluous material, like the title track, and sang it as if it were a hushed yet vital communication: a mournful confession shared with an understanding friend over a late-night shot of whiskey or, more likely, a painful rumination that the singer needed to proclaim to himself in order to work his way free of a bitter memory.
It was Ava who did that, who taught him how to sing a torch song, Nelson Riddle later told biographer Kitty Kelley. I certainly never abandoned the passion. In fact, one of my very first pieces for this magazine, almost thirty years ago, was an account of Sid Mark , the disk jockey who has been playing nothing but Sinatra records for what was then thirty and is now closer to sixty years. And I was privileged to write a farewell notice when Sinatra died, in But I still find Sinatra resistance in surprising corners.
I spent some time this past weekend trying to persuade a friend of excellent taste, who saw the new HBO documentary and was a bit bemused by it, to really listen to Sinatra. Sinatra is all understatement, relaxation, wit, and ease. Judy Garland is all vibrato and tears; Sinatra is all legato and regrets. In recordings, Bing Crosby or—greater still—Louis Armstrong both still sound like performers : you feel the stage and the footlights in their singing.
This gives his voice its extraordinary sympathy. He sounds the way you would sound if you could speak the things you feel. His first role in the movies, and on records, was that of the younger brother, the kid. This matured into his role as the big brother, the counselor. The virtues that are essential to his art—understated swing, intelligent understanding of the lyrics, perfect taste in material—would seem to be ones that might belong to a fine jazz singer of lesser fame: a Mel Torme, or a Johnny Hartman.
Hartman is the black Sinatra, and of all other singers comes closest to his tone, though he lacks his sense of mischief. And so you get these two odd, coinciding figures: Frank and Sinatra, the Chairman of the Board and the Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau of pop—really, the first artist to make thought-through pop albums.
Sinatra was not a jazz artist, but he was one of the number—including Leonard Bernstein and Alec Wilder, around the same time—who brought jazz ideas into thoroughly composed and arranged music. Start instead with the live recording of Sinatra in Australia in , with the Red Norvo trio—a fine jazz-vibraphone group. At one point, he was giving 8 shows a day , in appearances in New York, in the late 's.
Can you imagine what kind of stamina it took to do that? Who would do that now, if anyone? The more you find out about the guy, the more there is to consider in his music. Oh and as an aside, check out his performance in the original Manchurian Candidate. Miles Davis, as part of his trumpet practice, used to take the deepest breath he could, dive into a swimming pool, and blow Sinatra phrases through his embouchure until he ran out of breath.
So, pretty much as rossination has it. I reckon "Swingin' Lovers" is a great place to start - you get an idea of what the fully-packaged Sinatra sounds like, backed by a great band playing great arrangements of great tunes. And ditto on what everyone's said about phrasing. Ava Gardner had at least one big reason: Asked by a reporter what she saw in Sinatra - a lb has-been - she replied demurely that 19lb of it was cock.
And if you can forget for a moment the creaky old man singing "My Way" crap and instead think of the days before rock, Sinatra was the sexy star all the girls loved. Before Elvis, it was Sinatra the girls screamed for and fainted over. And he could sing. In the s and s, he was the best pop singer around, and he sang songs by the best writers. You'll have to try to listen through pre-rock ears to really get it. Forget that Elvis and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones ever existed.
Sinatra was what came after Bing Crosby , who also could sing, so compare their early recordings to hear the difference. The wonder of Frank at his best is in the phrasing and interpretation of the material. Postscript: For some unknown reason this question tipped me over the edge of years of lurking to register It's a homage to old blue eyes from a bunch of jazz players Plus they go off on some of the themes mentioned above phrasing, etc posted by timelord at AM on February 22, Oh, and holdkris, they've got five albums at the bottom which they consider to be essential.
Sounds like a good place to start. He's from New Jersey. Check out Why Sinatra Matters from your local library. He generally respected a lyric, although there are several cases where a lyric he recorded was different than the published lyric of the tune, often by special arrangement with the songwriters. Bravo paulsc. Sinatra was also able to sing the same song and the same lyrics in completely different ways - not something too many vocalists can do. There have to be at least a dozen different versions of "Luck be a Lady" and each one is unique.
Initially, I think there was a combination of charming good looks with dangerous connections to make him enough of a bad boy that made the women swoon. Compound that with a dedicated work ethic and actual talent, and he really had the whole package. No pun intended, really. But when you listen to him sing, you can hear true emotion in there. I think you can hear hatred for his past in "My Way.
I don't see that in Hollywood today outside of some of what Clooney has tried to do with the remake of first Oceans film. There was a charasmatic aura around the pack, and Frank was the leader.
For the record, I'm more of a Dean fan. I've always said that I think Frank would toss a lady out of bed when he was done with her, but that Dean would at least make breakfast. I was living in Hoboken when Sinatra passed. It was astounding to see the people in the streets mourning this man. He had shed New Jersey long ago, was rumored to hate where he came from, and still he is so beloved that traffic literally stopped at the news that he had passed.
So he had to have something that the rest of us don't. Live, in Melbourne in front of a stripped down jazz combo. You don't need an orchestra when you have a walking metronome that is Frank Sinatra. Besides "In the Wee Small Hours" was most likely the first concept album, or at least the first effective one to be recognized as such. While never touching rock and roll, he managed to be an innovator without being hip.
He had a bad boy image and crooned traditionally enough to be liked by parents and the children. He literally owned the stage, to the point where "Chairman of the Board" seems like less of a nickname and more of a natural extension of who he is. There's one elements that has been discussed in this thread yet -- he started as a teeny bopper singer, and, as he matured, his selection of music tended to mature with him "Bim Bam Baby" not withstanding.
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