Will Friedwald's new book

[gmonahan]

Well, Jim, first I really appreciate your posting these because they do offer two interestingly different takes on the same song. It's a pretty melodramatic song no matter who arranges it! But I have to say I really prefer the Columbia version (which I assume is a Stordahl arrangement--again, I'm not close to my collection to check). Despite the choral group at the beginning and end, which was more typical of the Columbias and with which I could do without, it's a more subtle arrangement, and Sinatra is, I think, in better voice for it.

What Jenkins did with his acres of strings was to make Sinatra work harder (which may be why he very seldom sang these in concert), making him sing louder and therefore a bit more dramatically...or melodramatically, if one is being critical. There are times when that's kind of fun. "Where Are You" (the song, not the album) is a case where I think the melodrama kind of works, but even there, the strings are really intrusive. I think they completely overwhelm his version of "Laura" on that album.

I think you're right that Riddle captured "melancholy" better than any other arranger, and maybe it's just that one person's "sentiment" is another person's "maudlin." I guess I've always thought of "September of My Years" as a made-to-order melancholy album, so that the strings in "It was a Very Good Year," just go *way* over the top for me! A bit more of Riddle's melancholy and less of Jenkins's sentiment would have been a good thing in that song!

Of course, all of this has taken us a pretty fair distance from Friedwald's book, but I'm enjoying the conversation!

gregmo

[mattes]

I guess Friedwald has changed his opinion of Elvis. In his first book Elvis was Satan, in his latest book Elvis is GOD.

[JSngry]

What Jenkins did with his acres of strings was to make Sinatra work harder (which may be why he very seldom sang these in concert), making him sing louder and therefore a bit more dramatically...or melodramatically, if one is being critical.

Another way to look at it would be that singing "that way" was something Sinatra wanted to do as part of his musical identity (I think the ongoing relationship w/Jenkins pretty much confirms that) & that he needed arrangements with Jenkins' bulk to support him when he did. The Jenkins arrangements rarely featured prominent rhythm sections, which left a lot of room for Sinatra to expand and contract his time in an almost rubato fashion. In a very real sense, he was floating, and no human can truly float w/o an adequate cusion underneath. Jenkin's strings served that function, and I'm very thankful that either Sinatra or somebody - perhaps Jenkins himself - kept him from writing like he did for Nat Cole, where there was virtually no limit to the acreage...

I understand that a lot of people don't like strings in general, and Jenkins was string overdrive for sure, even if you do like strings (or at least do not object to them in principle). But it's one thing to just not strings, or to just not like a lot of strings, another to think that Sinatra wasn't going there because he wanted to. He obviously did, hell he used Jenkins longer than he did wither Riddle or May ("Thanks For The Memories" on She Shot Me Down is another example of Jenkins just outright nailing it). When an artist for whom I have the highest regards continues to make the same choice over time, I tend to think that there's something going on there that they "get" that maybe I don't. Sinatra's use of Jenkins has been exactly such an experience for me. Riddle I got right off the bat, May pretty quickly, but Jenkins...that one took a little while longer, and it involved getting over my aural profiling of all "lush" string writing being the same. It's not.

Also enjoying the conversation! Not least of all because I've pretty much done a 180 on Jenkins over time, although not Jenkins "in general" nearly as much as being able to discern "intent" with perhaps more...age, and also finally hearing the differences between/within his writing. Nothing negative here has been said in this discussion that I've not felt myself at one point or another, I assure you!

[JSngry]

Oh, '51 Fool vs '57...I'll take '57 every time. The earlier version is a bunch of raw, exposed nerves to be sure, and there's a certain visceral thrill there, but the later verison is more like, "Damn! Been there done that, done it again and again, STILL can't shake it off..." Less raw perhaps, but certainly more knowing and still just as trapped, which is even more, uh...disturbing.