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When Frank Sinatra took the microphone at Stage 7 of the Samuel Goldwyn Studio in Hollywood, California, on February 18, 1963, it wasn’t for a film shoot.

Sinatra selected the one-time home of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford for its fine acoustics and natural reverberation as he prepared to record his ninth album on the Reprise label, The Concert Sinatra.  The title wouldn’t refer to an actual Sinatra concert, but rather Sinatra singing with a full concert orchestra.  Nelson Riddle would be able to realize his most expansive arrangements on a brief but powerful selection of songs that could almost have been called The Rodgers and Hammerstein Songbook.  Of the album’s eight titles, four were written by the legendary duo; two others by Rodgers with his earlier collaborator, Lorenz Hart; and one by Hammerstein and his earlier collaborator, Jerome Kern.  The eighth title came from the equally distinguished pens of German expatriate composer Kurt Weill and renowned American poet and playwright Maxwell Anderson.  Every cut on the album was drawn from the Broadway stage, a songbook that benefited greatly from Sinatra’s largesse in performance, even if the man never set foot as an actor on The Great White Way.  The original album liner notes took the unusual step of describing the recording process: “The master tracks were recorded on Westrex 35 mm, sprocket-type multi-head magnetic recorders.  High output 325-3M recording film was used to achieve the best signal-to-noise ratio,” and so on.  Clearly, Frank Sinatra was proud of what would turn out to be a crown jewel in his catalogue.  Now, that crown jewel is ready for the big time again.

On January 17, Concord Records and Frank Sinatra Enterprises will reissue a remastered edition of The Concert Sinatra for the 21^st century, promising use of the original master recordings which have “not been used in any re-release of The Concert Sinatra since the original sound mix was prepared nearly 50 years ago.”  In preparation for this expanded reissue, producers located the original film canisters where the masters had been stored since the 1963 sessions.  Frank Sinatra Jr. led the production team to create a new mix utilizing “contemporary digital recording technology” for this 2012 edition.  Other reissues in Concord’s ongoing Sinatra series have also employed remixes, some more pronounced than others.  Sinatra Jr. promises a new experience for this release.  In his liner notes, he writes, “If you have had this magnificent album in the past and compare the orchestral content of previous releases to this new rendering, you will undoubtedly notice the amount of music, originally recorded on the master film that was never present before. Listening to other parts of Nelson Riddle’s classic orchestrations, never before heard on record, was indeed an experience for me.”  Chances are, it may be an experience for you, too.

Hit the jump for more on this classic album, including the full track listing and discographical annotation!

Emboldened by Riddle’s majestic arrangements (in which he eschews the swingin’ sound identified with him in favor of a lush, rich palette suitable for these ballads), Sinatra turned out some of his most powerful vocals ever.  Passion is the word that most comes to mind when describing these dramatic performances.  Sinatra fully embodies the tortured character of Billy Bigelow in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 8-minute “Soliloquy” from 1945’s Carousel, perhaps the finest recording ever of the ambitious musical sequence.  He’s equally passionate on the duo’s “I Have Dreamed” from 1951’s The King and I, and brings remarkable depth to Kern and Hammerstein’s “Ol’ [sic] Man River” (Show Boat, 1927).  Sinatra had performed the song in 1946’s MGM Kern extravaganza, Till the Clouds Roll By, and the depth of his interpretation had only grown in the ensuing years.  Sinatra reclaimed “Bewitched” (as in “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”) which had been sung by Rita Hayworth as Vera Simpson in the Sinatra-starring 1957 film version of the 1940 musical.  His intense performance of the song finds the pain underneath Lorenz Hart’s insouciant lyrics, and has arguably never been bettered.  These performances are just the tip of the iceberg of a set that also includes “This Nearly Was Mine” (from 1949’s South Pacific), Carousel’s stirring “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and the near-operatic anthem “Lost in the Stars” from the 1949 musical of the same name.  For the latter, Sinatra believably portrays the role of a reverend facing a spiritual crisis.

The 2012 Concert Sinatra is expanded by two bonus tracks, “America, the Beautiful” and the Sammy Cahn/Jimmy Van Heusen “California.”  Both songs were arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle, and recorded at the same February 18-20 sessions that yielded the original album.  Though their non-Broadway pedigrees would have made them an uncomfortable fit on the LP, they are welcome bonus tracks.

The Concert Sinatra hits stores from Concord on January 17, 2012.  You’ll find a pre-order link below!

Frank Sinatra, The Concert Sinatra (Reprise FS-1009, 1963 – reissued Concord, 2012)

1. I Have Dreamed
2. My Heart Stood Still
3. Lost in the Stars
4. Ol’ Man River
5. You’ll Never Walk Alone
6. Bewitched
7. This Nearly Was Mine
8. Soliloquy
9. California
10. America, The Beautiful

Tracks 1-8 from The Concert Sinatra, Reprise FS-1009, 1963
Tracks 9-10 recorded February 20, 1963, first issued on The Reprise Collection, Reprise 26340-2, 1990