It repeats, how it yells in my ear
It was 50 years ago this week that Frank Sinatra recorded his greatest album, the breezy and exuberant 15-song masterpiece "Songs For Swingin' Lovers." It was the fourth collaboration between Sinatra and his first arranger on Capitol Records, Nelson Riddle, and, on it, the two concocted the perfect mix of vocalist and ensemble. Sinatra's mood throughout the record was euphoric, and he was backed by both a bouncing swing band and a soft string orchestra-- 30 live musicians in total, who never once stepped over the lyric. By combining the finished product with the new 16-inch LP technology, swaying paramours could stay on the dance floor for up to 25 minutes before anyone would have to flip the disc."Sinatra's singing on the album," says critic John Rockwell, "has a verve and conviction that make his records from the Forties sound bland. He has learned to tease and twist a vocal line without violating its integrity... The album as a whole breathes with a delightful blend of Riddle's naughty sweetness and Sinatra's witty bravado."
For Lovers, Sinatra recorded in swingtime such epic tracks as "You Make Me Feel So Young," "Pennies From Heaven," "I Thought About You," and on January 12, 1956, the song voted by Sinatra fans as the best he ever recorded, "I've Got You Under My Skin."
The track contains a long orchestra crescendo in the middle. "I remembered a Stan Kenton record, and that trombone back-and-forth thing," Riddle remembered in Will Friedwald's book Sinatra! The Song is You, "I was always fascinated by it. I tried to find an equivalent to use behind singers, and that was my version."
Studio player Milt Bernhart got the call to command the interlude, and wailed away on his horn for at least a dozen takes before Sinatra and Riddle settled on the final take. "And yet as passionate as Bernhart gets in his twelve bars or so," notes Friedwald, "he pales beside Sinatra, who returns to ram the lyric home with nothing short of orgiastic fury."
"Songs For Swingin' Lovers" was the most important work of the 20th Century's greatest entertainer, the epoch of Sinatra's remarkable ascension into the musical stratosphere. It remains a detailed record of collaborative genius and great fortune, a handbook of timeless cool, and a damn fine excuse to hit the dance floor.
posted by CM @ 9:38 PM
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