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The Unforgettable Legacy Of Frank Sinatra And Nelson Riddle

Frank Sinatra is rightful known today as an entertainment icon, but many forget that there was a time when he was just another washed up teen idol trying to reinvent himself artistically and revive his career. After his teen idol stardom ended, Sinatra went through a rough period that he described as ‘all Monday’s’ when his personal life was in shambles, his professional prospects non-existent and his financial status in ruin.

To make things even worse, his bosses at Columbia Records were mis-managing his talent in an ill-advised effort to make him a ‘novelty singer’. This included a short lived pairing with Mitch Miller–the very low point of which was a horrible record called ‘Mama Will Bark’. Here the greatest voice of the 20th Century recorded a duet with a busty actress named Dagmar and a dog impersonator barking and howling in the background. These records were poorly received by the public–not a surprise in retrospect–and in 1952 Columbia Records dumped Sinatra.

In 1953, several singers who here friends of Sinatra, most notably Jo Stafford and June Hutton brought him to the attention of Capitol Records A&R man Dave Dexter, Jr. This led to a contract, and begun a nine year association with Capitol that most critics consider the finest era of Sinatra’s work. Initially, Frank worked with Axel Stordahl (June Hutton’s husband, with whom he had worked at Columbia) and these sessions produced some decent recordings, including “I’m Walking Behind You” and “Lean Baby”, but nothing incredibly significant. Dexter wanted Frank to try something different, and with Stordahl leaving to accept a job with Eddie Fisher in New York, he agreed reluctantly to a pairing with Nelson Riddle. Riddle was an experienced big band conductor, known best at that point for his work with Nat King Cole. Dexter had envisioned this pairing ever since he had signed Sinatra, but its doubtful that even he could have foreseen the magic that was to result.

To say that the pairing ‘clicked’ from the start is a severe understatement. The first Sinatra/Riddle session produced ‘I’ve Got The World On A String’. Riddle’s arrangement gave the Ted Kohler/Harold Arlen chestnut a new life and complimented Sinatra’s more mature vocal styling perfectly. It wasn’t a huge hit at the time, reaching only #14 on the charts, but has since become a classic. Sinatra himself loved the song and would continue to perform it live for the rest of his life–frequently using it to open his performances.

When the phoenix-like rebirth of Frank Sinatra’s career is put into a modern context, it becomes even more remarkable. Today one can scarcely imagine a ‘teenybopper’ idol–say, Jordan Knight from ‘New Kids on the Block’ or one of the Jonas Brothers-being able to sustain a serious musical career at all after their initial stardom among the adolescent set. Frank Sinatra not only revived his career, but left an imprint on America popular music–and its culture–that is unlikely to ever be equaled. “I’ve Got The World On A String” can easily be considered the ‘big bang’ in the creation of Frank Sinatra’s world that we all inhabit. It is a celebration of the good life, of which the music of Frank Sinatra will always remain an intrinsic part.

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Sinatra Swings To A Bossa Nova Beat

Frank Sinatra is often dismissed as a mere ‘pop’ singer and critically diminished relative to his contemporaries. He’s often accused of being formulaic and repetitive and not afforded the proper respect for his vocal talent. While Sinatra certainly knew what worked for him, and what kind of songs and arrangements he liked, the assertion that he didn’t have the vocal ‘chops’ is patently unfair. Perhaps the finest example of his vocal excellence is his work with Brazilian guitarist Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Jobim is considered the founding father of Bossa Nova, and certainly deserves a bulk of the credit for popularizing the genre in North America. His collaboration with Sinatra on a samba tinged album Francis Albert Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim was a critical and commerical success. Sinatra had the highest respect for Jobim as an artist and liked him as a friend. He would try to work out the logistics for the two to record together at several points in his career, but it never came to pass.

“Wave”, written by Jobim and arranged by Eumir Deodato, is among the best of all of the Sinatra/Jobim collaborations. It features some amazing vocal work by Sinatra, including perhaps the lowest notes he ever hit on a recording. It is said that for the rest of his life Sinatra would listen to “Wave” just to hear how good he sounds hitting the bass notes.

This song originally intended as the opening track of a second volume of Sinatra/Jobim collaborations, but it was never released as such. The story that has circulated over the years is that the Sinatra/Jobim album put on the back burner so that Reprise could release the concept album “Watertown” instead. As an commercial decision, it’s tough to fathom the rationale if this is the case. “Watertown” sold fewer copies than any other Sinatra release on Reprise. Another story is that Sinatra himself nixed the release because he hated the cover art which featured the ‘King of Swingers’ wearing a windbreaker and standing in front of a Greyhound bus. Hard to blame him for disliking that image if this version of the story is true.

“Wave” finally surfaced on “Sinatra and Company” in 1970. “Wave” also appeared on the Reprise box set and of course of the “Complete Reprise Recordings” suitcase collection.

Will Friedwald, in his definitive book on Sinatra’s music “Sinatra: The Song Is You” described the singer’s work with Jobim as having “flexibility and delicacy, as if they could be blown about by a soft Brazilian breeze”. This sensual and sultry song, in particular, is among the finest vocal work of Sinatra’s amazing career.

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Mp4 Downloads For Your MP4 Player

The mp4 format is the next format in line after the mp3. Where mp3 was concerned with music, mp4 is mostly associated with video. With free mp4 downloads available online, portable music and digital media players gained huge popularity, because of the void filled by the mp4 format. Mp4 allows users to store video files on their portable systems without occupying too much space.

If you own a portable media player which allows you to watch videos as well and has a large memory, then downloading and storing movies on your player can be a great way to make any boring journey pleasant. You could store as many movies on your player depending on its memory capacity. The question then is where to find these movies and media that are in mp4 format.

There are many sites that allow you to download mp4 media for free from the internet onto your computer. These files can then be transferred to your portable media player. The majority of these sites either have these files stored in their searchable data base or otherwise provide links to file hosting websites that have these files stored on them.

It all sounds too good to be true and it is. The catch is that the files you download from these sites might be harmful in more ways than one. Either they could be in violation of a copy write infringement or could be embedded with viruses or Trojans and spyware that can harm your computer and your media player. The links provided to the popular file hosting services from these free websites could be genuine on the other hand and might be even safer.

The other option is to register with one of the many sites that let you have access to their Mp4 content for a monthly fee or a onetime joining fee. The database is bound to be much larger and more refined and ordered and the search facility on these sites would also be top notch. There need not be any fear of downloading infected files either from these premium websites.

If you are looking for a budget option that allows you to download for free without paying anything, then opting to download from a file sharing or peer to peer network would be another option. Though the files found on most file sharing networks are usually infected, there is also quality content that can be found so long as you are able to differentiate.

The last option available is to use a torrent client and download the media you want as a torrent file. Torrent websites allow you to search for media and download torrent files from them. Always go for a reliable torrent site that showcases virus free verified content.

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