Yes, for sure. Maybe for the next reissue the title will be rightfully adjusted to “Gordon Jenkins Orchestrates for Only the Lonely “. And in small letters at the bottom it will state “vocal accompaniment Frank Sinatra “.
You've hit on some good points, sure, but I don't think that Nelson Riddle "created" Sinatra so much as Nelson Riddle and Sinatra were both ready to make the jump. Nelson was already a well-respected arranger and had great success with Nat Cole and others at Capitol but he refined his style with Sinatra. Because the orchestral palate with Sinatra increased over time, too. Sinatra recorded Swing Easy with a relatively small band (around 10 pieces if I remember correctly, no strings). In The Wee Small Hours, same situation for the most part. There's a string section on some songs, small combo units on the others, but certainly nothing as symphonic as Only the Lonely or The Concert Sinatra later on. And of course, Songs for Young Lovers comprises mainly of adaptations of George Siravo arrangements. The first couple of years of their collaboration really was about tweaking and growing with each other. At least that's how I see it. And then the brilliance of adding strings as a lower layer under the brass and woodwinds to create this new sound as heard on Songs for Swingin' Lovers... That's the way I see it. They grew together and brought out the best in each other. In the same way that Deakins brings out the best in the Cohen's or Wade brought out the best in LeBron and vice versa.
Fine, I’ll put my dreams away for another day. I was just hoping a very low price could help justify to my wife why I was acquiring an 8th and 9th physical copy of this album.
$35 for a double album with one album’s worth of material is downright criminal. The Recent release by the Band is $10 cheaper and spins at 45 rpm. To me that made sense. This does not.
Well, yes, maybe he did not "create" Sinatra, but Nelson was the best choice and the most able man to develop and realise his ideas and goals!
Over the last 9 (?) years, I've gotten so lovingly used to the mono from the MFSL CD, that hearing it in this new stereo mix (or any mix probably) just sounds strange. I feel like there's a natural stereo vibe here, as in multiple mics in the room were used to give a true stereo space -- as opposed to just creating a spread by panning mono sources. I may have to get this, but I'll wait to see if there's a hi-res version. I guess there's no reason to get the deluxe if I already have the MFSL.
Just read an interesting item in Linda Ronstadt's autobiography about something she learned while working with Nelson Riddle on her standards albums in the early 1980's. Nelson confided to Linda that his mother had died while he was working on the Sinatra Only the Lonely album, and that "there was a lot of her in those arrangements". Interesting. And may help explain some of the albums darkness.... (If you have the book, see page 152)
Oh Yes … there is definitely reason 's to get this set unreleased recording, rare recordings not widely released there is every reason in the world to get this set for the sake of completeness.
I was going through my collection and right now, if I want to listen to everything available from the OTL sessions I have to pull out 5 different cd's. After Oct 19, I will have only to reach for 1 2-cd set and be able to listen to 99% of what's available from those sessions.
If you were to have only one or two Sinatra albums in your record collection, this should definitely be one of them IMHO! Of course, upon listening to this beauty a few times, I think you might become a little addicted to this man's great voice and music. It happened to many, many years ago.
I was just thinking with them going down this two cd route you could use this for Songs For Young Lovers and Swing Easy in a combined set. Come Fly With Me in mono and Stereo. Also you could do this for Where Are You? As well. I hope this is the beginning for all the above and let's get Wee Small Hours as well in this format. Let's get interesting and do This Is Sinatra 1 and 2 in this kind of mini lp format and then every other Album including A Man And His Music. I know we've had the recent MFSL releases and the Norberg Concepts box but packaging wise this how they should all look.
The next logical step is to do Come Dance with Me for the 60th anniversary. It's a Grammy Award winner for AOTY, remember. And there are quite a few tracks that can be compiled: the original Billy May charts for The Song is You and Just in Time stand out the most. I can't remember if "It All Depends on You," (featured on the EoTC discs) was recorded at that session. And I can't remember the exact time frame of the recording for "Here Goes" (featured on The Capitol Years). The mono mix for CDWM is a fold down though, right? And then there's a December 11th. 1958 session that was probably the first run through of the May chart for Day In-Day Out (Easily the highlight on the album). Edit: Found an online discography to jog my memory about It All Depends on You. The Billy May version was recorded on the same session as the first versions of TSIY and JIT. Additional edit: Here Goes recorded in May of 1958 on the same session as the pair of Keely Smith duets as well as Same Old Song and Dance.
Re: Come Dance with Me No. Wildly different sound characteristics on the mono vis-a-vis either the 1958 or c. 1960 stereo mixes.
I note the link for the new LP adjacent to the CD listing on Amazon UK currently has it available for £12.99 although a check of the ASIN number throws up another title / artist altogether whilst the listing still has "TBC"!!! Is it worth a punt to anyone?
