Frank Sinatra • Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra
 his has been a bleak
pandemic winter, so it’s hard to overstate how pleased I was when our overworked
FedEx driver dropped off a review copy of Impex Record’s Sing and Dance with
Frank Sinatra. It was first released in 1950 on 33rpm 10" LP; Impex's 12"
reissue includes all eight of the original cuts on side one, and alternate and unreleased
takes on side two. Unpacking and playing this mono classic were the record-collector's
equivalent of enjoying a Michelin-rated meal in my living room. If that sounds like hype,
consider the following. The music was transferred, restored and remastered in the analog
domain from the original 15ips session tapes by Grammy-winning recording engineer Andres
Meyer. Lacquers were then cut by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood,
and the limited pressing run of 5000 copies was personally supervised by Rick Hashimoto at
RTI.
If that wasn’t already enough talent, Impex hired the folks at Stoughton Printing (well-known for their stellar work with Intervention Records, among other labels) to reproduce the original cover in a luxuriously laminated tip-on gatefold and create a colorful 24-page liner-note booklet written by Frank Sinatra authority Charles L. Granata. I have a friend in the printing business who said the booklet’s textured subheadings and glossy red and yellow paint effects are the result of a spare-no-expense process known as “spot UV varnish” that must have boosted the production costs considerably. There’s even a detailed rundown of each piece of equipment used in the production process, from the Studer tape decks to the Westrex cutter head driven by a refurbished Haeco vacuum-tube amplifier. About the only thing left to the imagination is what color socks Matt Cavaluzzo was wearing when he restored two of the original session lacquers. The obvious love and care invested in this project left me a bit in awe each time I lifted the gold Impex seal to remove the album from its protective vinyl envelope. Recorded for the Columbia label, with Mitch Miller at the helm, Sing and Dance came at a low point in Sinatra’s career. With his bobby-soxer fan base in the rearview mirror, lingering resentment among some veterans that he hadn’t served in combat during World War II and his much-publicized marital infidelities combined to make Sinatra a risky commodity who desperately needed a change. This disc documents how he began to break out of the box he’d put himself in. Unlike the dreamy romance ballads that made Sinatra’s 78s bestsellers during the war years, this collection features livened-up tempos and was marketed as a dance-party record for the emerging 10" LP market. How does this music stack up to the rest of Sinatra’s vast catalogue? A good place to start is with “Only a Paper Moon” and “My Blue Heaven.” After listening to the 1950 Columbia versions captured on this Impex remaster, I went back to listen to the 1961 renditions of the same songs on an original mono pressing of Sinatra’s Swingin’ Sessions [Columbia W1491]. I immediately noticed that the older Sinatra is cockier. The atmosphere is more spontaneous and he sounds as though he has a martini in one hand and a cigarette in the other, playfully improvising with a voice that’s got some extra texture, likely due to the cumulative effects of all that alcohol and nicotine in the intervening years. By contrast, the versions presented on this Impex remaster are clearly made for the dance floor. You can imagine Sinatra leading Ava Gardner through a series of twirls around the room, dipping here and there before he moves in for a whisper and a kiss. Because these sessions were recorded separately, they’re stripped of the usual room ambience and studio reverb, giving these late-night recordings an intimacy that’s perfect for the material. By his own account, Sinatra was hopelessly in love at the time and his phrasing sounds like it. It doesn’t hurt that Sinatra’s voice was in top form for these sessions after nearly two months of rest and therapy following a fabled performance at New York’s Copacabana during which he nearly ruined his million-dollar vocal cords. Throughout these sessions, you can hear the purity of his baritone and the forceful delivery of someone who feels he has something to prove. What may throw off some modern listeners a bit are the technological limitations producers faced at the time when they tried to capture the wide dynamic range of big bands and orchestras. Occasionally, brass crescendos are distorted as they overdrive the studio’s microphones, and there’s not nearly the soundstage depth and scope we’ve become accustomed to hearing on Sinatra’s very best Capitol and Reprise recordings. These occasional lapses are mentioned in the album’s liner notes and they don’t detract in any serious way from the otherwise rich and inviting sound quality of this release. The previously unreleased rehearsal recordings and singles that comprise side two are “all killer and no filler.” Listening to Sinatra work with the producers to get his delivery right on “You Do Something” and his coaching of musicians on “It All Depends On You” are revelatory. Sinatra’s perfectionism and obvious appreciation of sonic nuances were no doubt frustrating to some of the people he worked with, but that attention to detail pays off in the end with a performance that clearly swings better. In addition to offering audiophiles a tantalizing glimpse into the technical process, these tracks convey the essence of Sinatra’s command of phrasing and capture the combination of talent and intuition that made so many of his records special. It all comes down to this: Consummate packaging,
meticulous remastering, fascinating liner notes and an ultra-flat pressing characterized
by inky-black backgrounds make this a must-own LP for any serious fan of The Voice. |
