CD Review: Frank Sinatra, Standing Room Only (2018)

The most recent Frank Sinatra boxed set, Standing Room Only, 2018.

The picture we have of Frank Sinatra’s live recordings has greatly changed over the last two decades. Until the 1990’s there were only two officially released live albums by Sinatra: 1966’s excellent Sinatra at the Sands, which found him backed by Count Basie’s band, and 1974’s The Main Event, which celebrated his return to touring after a brief two-year retirement from show business. It’s surprising that a performer of Sinatra’s stature released so few live recordings during the peak of his career. 

Excellent live recordings of Sinatra with small combos finally saw the light of day in the 1990’s. Sinatra & Sextet: Live in Paris, an amazing 1962 show was released in 1994, and Frank Sinatra with the Red Norvo Quintet: Live in Australia, 1959 was released in 1997. Both of these discs featured Sinatra at the peak of his vocal powers, and highlighted what a remarkable jazz singer he was. 

Since Sinatra’s death in 1998, a number of terrific box sets highlighting his live recordings have been released, starting with Sinatra: Vegas in 2006, and continuing with Sinatra: New York, Sinatra: London, and Sinatra: World on a String. 

Released at the beginning of May, Standing Room Only is the latest addition to the live Sinatra canon. It features complete shows from 1966, 1974, and 1987. 

The first disc is from the same 1966 residency that produced Sinatra at the Sands, and it’s a portrait of Las Vegas at a time when it was still wild and glamorous. Sinatra cribbed both his opening and closing lines of patter from his buddy Dean Martin: “How did all these people get in my room?” and “I feel sorry for the people who don’t drink, because when they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re gonna feel all day long.” 

Vocally, Sinatra sounds a little bit rough at the beginning of the show, but his voice quickly warms up. One of the highlights is a hard swinging version of “Luck Be a Lady,” which is a great example of how Sinatra could make a song his own. As originally written by Frank Loesser, it’s a very fast song, but Sinatra and arranger Billy May slowed it down and made it swing harder. Sinatra gives the song a swagger that it was previously lacking. 

Another song that Sinatra made his own was “Fly Me to the Moon,” also featured in the 1966 concert. The song had been around for years before Sinatra recorded it with Count Basie in 1964. While it had nearly always been sung as a ballad, Quincy Jones’ arrangement for Sinatra turned it into a swinger, and it became one of Sinatra’s most famous songs. 

There are some rarities in the 1966 show: “Street of Dreams,” which Sinatra had recorded in 1942, but wouldn’t record again until 1979, “Where or When?” had been recorded by Sinatra in 1945 and 1958, but the latter version wasn’t released until the 1980’s, and “The Shadow of Your Smile,” which Sinatra never recorded a studio version of. 

Basie’s band is cooking behind Frank, and you can hear the enjoyment in his voice throughout the show. 

The second disc is from the same 1974 tour that produced The Main Event, which was a television special as well as a live album. One of the highlights of the show is Sinatra’s beautiful version of “Ol’ Man River.” If you’re not familiar with Sinatra’s version, you might think at first that it’s an odd song for him to sing. But he gets so completely inside the song that you’re not thrown off by an Italian American singing a song written for an African American character. And Sinatra pulls off one of his neatest tricks of phrasing in the song. On the lyric, “you get a little drunk and you lands in jail” his voice drops down as low as possible, into the bass range, as he elongates “jail” and then, without taking a breath, he connects it to the next lyric, “I gets weary, and sick of tryin’”. It’s very moving, and at this concert he pulls it off very well. 

The song selection for the 1974 concert is superb, as we are treated to many of Sinatra’s signature songs, like “The Lady is a Tramp,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “My Kind of Town,” and “My Way.” There’s also a superbly swinging version of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” perhaps Sinatra’s greatest song. 

Sinatra’s choice of contemporary material for the 1974 show is also excellent. Sinatra’s instincts were usually spot on, but during the 1960’s and 1970’s they sometimes led him to record songs that simply didn’t fit his style. (See: “Downtown,” “Don’t Sleep in the Subway,” “Mrs. Robinson,” and “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.”) However, this time around Sinatra chose very well: “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” by Stevie Wonder, is a good example of a contemporary song that translated well to Sinatra’s style. Also included in the show are “If,” a big hit for the group Bread in 1971, “Send in the Clowns,” from Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, and the excellent “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” 

Sinatra is backed by Woody Herman and the Young Thundering Herd, and they do an excellent job of supporting the Chairman.

Disc three was recorded in Dallas, Texas on October 24, 1987. It’s the latest complete concert of Sinatra’s that has been officially released. Some of the songs were previously released on the 1995 CD Sinatra 80^th: Live in Concert, but this is the first time the entire concert has been released.

Sinatra was 71 when the Dallas concert was recorded, and his voice was not as good as it used to be. But considering all the smoking and drinking Sinatra did, he was probably lucky to still have a voice at all at that age. However, despite his vocal limitations, there are still wonderful moments throughout the concert. 

One of the highlights of the show is Sinatra’s beautiful version of “My Heart Stood Still.” At the end he holds a very high note—it’s lovely to hear. Another standout is the hard-swinging version of “Mack the Knife.” One of the best ballads is a heartbreaking version of “What’s New?” The imperfections in Sinatra’s voice just make the song emotionally stronger. There’s also a lovely version of “Lonely Town” from the musical On the Town. 

There are also some rarities in the 1987 concert, like “When Joanna Loved Me” and the terrific “Maybe This Time,” both of which Sinatra never made studio recordings of. “Where or When” also reappears on the 1987 concert. 

The more I listen to Sinatra’s live recordings, the more I realize how much admiration he had for the songwriters. In the 1987 concert, before just about every song he tells the audience who wrote the song, and after singing it he often says, “Isn’t that lovely? What a beautiful song!” Sinatra expressed his emotions through these songs, and it’s obvious that they meant a lot to him. 

There’s a funny moment at the end of the first disc. Sinatra spends the last five minutes of his act going through all of the other acts playing Vegas, and telling people to go see them! It’s like he’s a Las Vegas tour guide, not the biggest star on the planet! Sinatra obviously didn’t have to tell people about all of the other shows in Vegas, but for whatever reason he does. To me, those little moments give us a glimpse of the man behind the legend, and they show us a little bit of Sinatra’s generosity towards other performers. 

Standing Room Only has many outstanding recordings on it, and it’s worthy of any Sinatra fan’s time and money.