Ring-a-ding ding! It can be used as an adjective or an interjection. But when Frank Sinatra chose the expression to title his very first album for his very own label, it was simply an ecstatic expression of pure joy. Sinatra was no longer tethered to Capitol Records, the label at which he’d made history with a series of “concept” albums. He had the freedom to make some new history, his way, when he launched Reprise. And Ring-a-Ding Ding!, now reissued and remastered for its 50th anniversary as part of Concord’s ongoing campaign (Concord CRE-32929), didn’t merely…
Review: Frank Sinatra, “September of My Years”
Frank Sinatra was always one to face the world head-on. So it was with his turning 50. The man who had pioneered the “concept album” with a string of themed records for Capitol began thinking of an LP that would allow him to plant his feet squarely in the present, 1965, and reflect with every ounce of experience he’d acquired in the many lives he’d led over a mere 50 years. The album that would become September of My Years began its life inspired by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s “September Song.” Introduced…
Review: Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim, “Sinatra/Jobim: The Complete Reprise Recordings”
“Tall and tan and young and handsome…” Those lyrics to Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “The Boy from Ipanema” kicked off a bossa nova boom that saw virtually every noteworthy vocalist and jazz musician of the 1960s recording in the mellow Brazilian style. Frank Sinatra, though, was hardly one to follow a trend for hipness’ sake. By 1967, the label he founded, Reprise, was turning its sights to Laurel Canyon and Haight-Ashbury, and the bossa craze was on the wane. Sinatra would, as always, record on his own terms. An album teaming Sinatra with Jobim himself (often called…
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