Why is the Reprise label called... Reprise?

1) I'm not an English speaker.

2) I'm not familiar with founder Frank Sinatra's career.

3) I have read the Wiki pages (including the one on the English version of the word Reprise) and couldn't find a clue about the meaning.

I notice that Reprise was "Reprise:" on the old tri-color version of the label...

 

"To play, and play again" as the old Reprise motto went.

Reprise in it's definition means resuming a particular action. In this case, a record that you want to play (and since it's so good) you'll want to play it again.



Now, where did I put that Mitzi Gaynor album? That needs some reprising...

 

http://new.ca.music.yahoo.com/blogs/mojo/15129/rock-star-vanity-labels/

 

And, for your musical education: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sinatra

 

Quote:
Frank Sinatra – Reprise: In 1960, no artist dared to stand against a label. Which is why Sinatra loved the idea. He'd just renewed his deal with Capitol Records, then decided, "Screw it, I want my own label." After a foiled attempt to buy Verve, Frank, on advice from attorney Mickey Rudin, invested in his own company. To everyone else, the label was pronounced re-preez, but to Frank, it was re-prize. As in reprisal against Capitol, and all the "cretinous" rock'n'roll they were releasing. Frank signed Vegas pallies Dean and Sammy, as well as jazz greats like Duke Ellington. But when first year sales fizzled, he lost interest and let Warner Brothers take over. Grudgingly, he soon became labelmates with Jimi Hendrix, The Kinks and Tiny Tim.

I can't believe that conjectural drivel is still being recycled in 2011 - it's been refuted a hundred times over.

Sinatra had been trying since 1957 to establish his own label (originally Essex), in order for artists to have some ownership of their master recordings, including himself.

"Reprise" is a (generally) musical noun and not a verb, and no matter how FS pronounced it, it's quite a stretch to assert that it secretly means "reprisal" as in "revenge".

 

A "repeat sign" in music (signalling that you need to repeat, or reprise, the section between the signs) consists of a vertical line and a colon. I guess the ":" was meant as a reference to that.

 

Yes, I think that's a bunch of baloney too. Nowhere in all the Sinatra stuff I've read has Reprise being named so for that reason.

And the bit about Capitol and all their cretinous rock n' roll is silly, too. I don't think Capitol had really gotten that far into signing any rock acts in 1959-1960. Groups like the Kingston Trio was their kind of act for the kiddies at that time.

 

Frank was not above holding a grudge. Certainly he and Capitol didn't part entirely amicably - I believe Capitol sued to have Frank change the title of his Reprise album Swing Along With Me on the ground that it was too close to the Capitol Come Swing With Me.

 

Indeed, a company who made music, "To Play & Play Again" and also as a reprisal against Capitol. No better name for Frank's company. Who kept their quality even when they merged with Warner Brothers and became more eclectic.

 

Wow, for a non-classical label name, it's kind of "highbrow"! I would have never guessed. It is a confusing name for us French (and musically less-than-literate) speakers because, being a french name to begin with, it has more different possible meanings than in English, where the definitions are basically centered around the above.

Thanks, folks!

 

This appears to be the invention of Stan Cornyn, the Reprise Records publicist who wrote so many of the label's liner notes. From Cornyn's book, EXPLODING: The Highs, Hits, Hype, Heroes, and Hustlers of the Warner Music Group (Rolling Stone Press, 2002), page 49 [footnote]:

It's a colorful tale, and Cornyn repeats it in his essay in the book for the new UMG box set, [thread=235076]THE REPRISE YEARS[/thread], page 1:

However, Nancy Sinatra has debunked the notion that FS used the Re-PRIZE pronunciation (here):

 

Not saying the Frank Sinatra story is true, but the quotation Driver 8 posted is reasonably correct about the word's pronunciations and meanings as a verb, though the "retake by force" meaning is obsolete.

 

And here I always thought Sinatra formed Reprise specifically to distribute the music of the Fugs and Captain Beefheart.

 

True or not, Stan's "Exploding!" was a fun read!
Kind of like "Hit Men" with a better personality.

 

It's called Reprise 'cause that's what Mr. Sinatra wanted to call it, bay-bee.

 

Stan was, and is, above all a creative writer.

He took the art of horses**t liner notes to a level never equalled.

 

REPRISE PROMO...

Chris C

 

Now, where did I put that Mitzi Gaynor album? That needs some reprising...[/QUOTE]

 

Frank even goes into that a little in the A Man & His Music (1965) set.
He pronounces it re-preeze on there. It threw me for a loop the first time I heard that, because I had assumed it was re-prize. But that's the same way I still say it today, re-prize.

 

" Reprise" In the words of Frank Sinatra " Creative Freedom"

 

That's EXACTLY what I was gonna post!!-"Because Frank wanted to.Problem with that"????

 

Frank personally wooed Frank Zappa away from Verve!!!

 

The musical explanation is fine with me now... But what about that little steam boat? What's it got to do with playing something again and again?

 

It's Frank's world. We just live in it.

I heard that he wanted to name his new label after a piece of fruit but dismissed it as a stupid idea.