My Favorite Sinatra Album

Sinatra At the Sands & Songs For Swingin' Lovers
If you ask most Sinatra, Jazz, or music lovers what their favorite Sinatra album is, they will most likely answer one of these two albums. Songs For Swingin' Lovers, as I've said before, was the first Sinatra album I ever owned. It remains to this day, in my opinion, to be one of the best vocal performances to ever be recorded. And you can not help but smile and laugh at Frank Sinatra's "off-the-cuff" remarks on Sinatra At the Sands.

"Now this man here...is gonna take me by the hand...and he gonna lead me down the right path...to righteousness...and all that other mother Jazz...in the right tempo" Frank Sinatra introducing "Fly Me To The Moon"

Singing the songs that everyone knows him for, in front of the great Count Basie and his Orchestra. You can't get much better than that!

However, neither one of these albums is my favorite Sinatra album. It is actually Frank Sinatra's A Swingin' Affair! Recorded the year after Songs For Swingin' Lovers, this album was another collaboration between Frank Sinatra and Nelson Riddle who arranged and conducted the orchestra through sixteen spectacular arrangements. Like Songs for Swingin' Lovers, A Swingin' Affair has a wide variety of famous composers listed such as Cole Porter, George & Ira Gershwin, Duke Ellington, and Rogers & Hart. However it also has a few lesser known songs such as "Lonesome Road", "Oh! Look At Me Now", and "No One Ever Tells You". It is the mixture between the widely known songs and the lesser known ones that gives A Swingin' Affair its' character. Listening from beginning to end, the album takes you through a wild ride of sweet words of love and tenderness, to the rocky moments of despair that can only come with a broken heart. The album does what the title expains, taking you through A Swingin' Affair.

This album, in my opinion, shows Frank Sinatra at his supreme best, displaying more depth and turmoil in his singing than in previous albums. His phrasing is always impeccable but I think the lyric on this album gives him more to work with and experiment with. There is no better example of the depths that Frank Sinatra reaches on this album than those on I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good written by Duke Ellington & Paul Francis Webster.

With the assistance of the arrangement, it starts mellow, soft, and melancholy with a single trombone playing softly in the background answering Frank as he begins to explore the heartbreak in the lyric. The saxes and strings aid in building up to the second time through the tune where the horns come in and wail. Frank continues to pour his heart out building and building until his voice cracks with desperation asking the lord to make his girl love him. And finally he realizes it's not going to get better and he's stuck repeating the words "no good" over and over again.

I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good
"My Poor heart is sentimental not made of wood
I got it bad and that ain't good...
And the things I tell my pillow, nobody should
I got it bad, I got it bad and it's no good...
Lord above, make her love me the way that she should,
I got it bad and that ain't good.

A Swingin' Affair has at least two of the most well known recordings Frank Sinatra did in his career at Capitol Records: "I Won't Dance" & "The Lady Is A Tramp".

Frank Sinatra's "I Won't Dance" has become the definitive version of the song. It has been used in many movies such as What Women Want is a recording that is easily recognized by nearly everyone.

"The Lady Is A Tramp" was originally recorded and then removed from the album to be used on the Soundtrack for Pal Joey, which starred Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak, and Rita Hayworth. This movie is also where Sinatra coined the "Raincoat over the shoulder" look. (Just a little fun fact for ya) It was then put back on the album after it had been released.

If you've never heard this album and if you're in the mood for an emotional ride through some of the greatest kept secrets of the Great American Songbook, take a listen. You won't be able to stop.