{"id":609,"date":"2011-09-27T04:58:01","date_gmt":"2011-09-27T09:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=609"},"modified":"2011-09-27T04:58:01","modified_gmt":"2011-09-27T09:58:01","slug":"cd-review-frank-sinatra-count-basie-the-complete-reprise-studio-recordings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/09\/27\/cd-review-frank-sinatra-count-basie-the-complete-reprise-studio-recordings\/","title":{"rendered":"CD Review: Frank Sinatra & Count Basie – The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hell, I don\u2019t know how many Frank Sinatra<\/strong> albums there have been. Not counting compilations — and there have been scores of those \u2013 Sinatra\u2019s voice graced something like sixty long players. His style developed, refined, improved (and then solidified toward the end of a long and illustrious career); highlights are many, and any given listener\u2019s favorites might include his work on Capitol or Reprise; his Vegas era; his romantic ballads; his saloon songs; or his swaggering, swinging big band work.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the last of those than I enjoy the most from Sinatra. Once he got his own label (Reprise), Sinatra began to focus on thematic (if not conceptual) albums, which made sense: the album only came into its own as a medium around that time.<\/p>\n

In 1962 Frank Sinatra had few peers; though he worked (and would continue to work) with an amazingly talented string of arrangers and bandleaders (Billy May<\/strong>, Neal Hefti<\/strong> and Quincy Jones<\/strong> to name but three), none of these asked for (or received) equal billing. Though Sinatra was always generous with credit, making a point in concert to note whom was responsible for a song\u2019s arrangement, his name was always at the top of the marquee.<\/p>\n

A pair of notable and worthy exceptions to this rule was the two long players Sinatra recorded with pianist\/bandleader Count Basie<\/strong>. The pair worked together on Sinatra-Basie: An Historic Musical First<\/em> in 1962, and then again in 1964 on It Might As Well Be Swing<\/em>. Basie\u2019s piano work, his band and orchestra can\u2019t really be said to be backing Sinatra on these recordings; the music is very much a pairing.<\/p>\n

Combined on a single disc in 2011, together these two records are now titled The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings<\/em> (so titled since they also did a live album, not included here).<\/p>\n

A hallmark of Basie\u2019s arrangements was his brief, understated solo piano intro. That technique is used extensively on Sinatra-Basie<\/em>. Possessed with a keen understanding of band dynamics, Basie developed arrangements that started quietly and built to a crescendo. Against that backdrop, Sinatra employed a similar approach, starting quietly and following the best; as the songs unfolded he\u2019d build the energy and loosen his vocal approach.<\/p>\n

The song selection is weighted toward songs that benefit from the powerful, inventive Basie arrangements, yet the chairman\u2019s voice is always front and center. Basie\u2019s band and orchestra engage in what is best described as a musical dialogue; it\u2019s never a competition. If there were a way to separate the vocal and instrumental channels on these songs, both would be equally thrilling. The combined effect is peerless.<\/p>\n

Expert use of stereo is a hallmark of \u201c(Love is) The Tender Trap.\u201d Not among Sinatra\u2019s most well-known songs, the song benefits from wide stereo back-and-forth between brass parts, with Sinatra\u2019s voice squarely in the middle. An uptempo reading of the romantic \u201cI Only Have Eyes for You\u201d show a different side of the song than other versions. The brief \u201cI\u2019m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter\u201d is the closest things to an all-instrumental number, and it points out that even though Sinatra was an unparalleled vocalist, he knew when not<\/em> to sing.<\/p>\n

On It Might As Well Be Swing<\/em>, Sinatra and Basie crank out a spirited tribute of sorts to Louis Armstrong<\/strong> in \u201cHello, Dolly!\u201d And Basie\u2019s fine barrelhouse playing finally gets a bit of spotlight on \u201cI Wanna Be Around.\u201d But the highlight is that record\u2019s opener, a spirited run-through of \u201cFly Me to the Moon.\u201d It showcases both the power and subtlety of both men\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Though ostensibly a big-band outing, It Might As Well Be Swing<\/em> features a lovely string-centric arrangement on \u201cI Wish You Love.\u201d And while the film Mondo Cane<\/em> isn\u2019t especially memorable, the Sinatra\/Basie reading its theme \u201cMore\u201d is a showstopper. If a song ever cried out for key modulation, this one does (and it gets it, along with a Big Finish). A cover of \u201cI Can\u2019t Stop Living You\u201d is taken here as a country-flavored nod to Ray Charles<\/strong>, and for once Sinatra\u2019s vocal choices seem overly mannered: it\u2019s a rare misstep.<\/p>\n

The strings swing<\/em> on \u201cThe Good Life,\u201d another prime example of the musical dialogue, the equal give-and-take that\u2019s found across the twenty tracks collected on The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings<\/em>. The whole affair wraps up in style with \u201cWives and Lovers.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Even with its horribly dated sexist lyrics, it\u2019s a fun number in the hands of this pair of experts.<\/p>\n

While this 2011 compilation doesn\u2019t include bonus tracks, it does bring together an enjoyable and illuminating set of interviews and essays in its enclosed booklet. Stan Cornyn<\/strong> mercifully dials his hipster prose way back in a 1964 interview with Quincy Jones, and Bill Dahl<\/strong>\u2019s 2011 essay places the pair of sessions in context for the modern listener. Dahl sums it up best with the last four words of his essay: \u201cLet the swinging commence.\u201d Indeed.<\/p>\n

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Hell, I don\u2019t know how many Frank Sinatra albums there have been. Not counting compilations — and there have been scores of those \u2013 Sinatra\u2019s voice graced something like sixty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}