Sinatra Family News

Original Idol Returns

American Idol is once again under the influence of The Voice. Tune in on May 4th to catch the final 5 paying tribute to Ol' Blue Eyes with a very special program that proves Sinatra is just as much a force today as he was when he first took the stage.

Harry Connick, Jr will appear as a guest mentor and help the Top 5 finalists – Crystal Bowersox, Lee DeWyze, Casey James, Aaron Kelly, and Michael Lynche – prepare for next week with the Songs of Frank Sinatra-themed performance show.

Frank Sinatra, long acclaimed as the world’s greatest performer of popular music, is the artist who set the standard for all others to follow. Sinatra was, of course, more than a singer - he was an actor, recording artist, cabaret and concert star, radio and television personality and, on occasion, producer, director and conductor.

A beloved entertainer for six decades, Sinatra’s achievements earned him three Oscars, two Golden Globes, 10 personal Grammys (and a total of 21 including those for his albums), an Emmy, a Cecile B. DeMille Award, a Peabody, and he was recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983. A generous charitable contributor, one of his most prestigious awards was the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1971. In the United States, Sinatra was also awarded the Presidential Medal Of Honor and the Congressional Gold Medal (Congress’s highest civilian award).

Posted by: Nancy | May 4, 2010 1:18 PM | Comments(2)

CFA In The Media

Come Fly Away will be featured on the following national television program:

LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY
Friday, April 30
9:00a.m.
In NYC: WABC – Channel 7

Charlie Neshyba-Hodges, Laura Mead, John Selya and Alexander Brady perform “You Make Me Feel So Young,” while Regis duets with Frank Sinatra. The piece will also include a brief chat with Twyla and Regis.

Watch the video here:

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PLAYBILL.COM
"Saturday Night Live" Does Sinatra In Their … Style
Link to Article

Looks like Twyla Tharp and her Come Fly Away dancers, who moved to the sounds of Frank Sinatra, may have some competition.

A skit during “”Saturday Night Live”’s April 24 episode imagines Sinatra’s life story as a new musical, direct from the Danish Repertory Theater, called I Did It In My Style: The Story of Frank Sinatra. Danish star Aki Hanenrud (Fred Armisen) does his best to bring Ol’ Blue Eyes back to life despite that pesky Danish accent, and being forced to sing the same original tune over and over because his writers couldn’t get the rights to any of Sinatra’s songs (which must explain the show’s title).

Okay, maybe Twyla and her gang are safe. But since they had to change their show’s title, too, who knows? (Tharp’s was originally called Come Fly With Me.)

The episode’s host, Oscar nominee Gabourey Sidibe (“Precious”), makes a cameo appearance as a jazz singer.

Watch the video here:

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NEW YORK TIMES
Tony Predictions by Charles Isherwood and Ben Brantley
May 16, 2010

Charles Isherwood says that Come Fly Away should have been nominated for Best Musical, and that Holley Farmer should have been nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

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NEW YORK TIMES
Farewell to a Brand-Name Season by Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood
May 16, 2010

“Just after the Tony Award nominations were announced on May 4, the theater critics of The New York Times, Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood talked over the season that was, on Broadway and off. Patrick Healy moderated their conversation, excerpts of which follow.

Q. You’re lucky enough to see shows free as critics. Say you had to pay; which Broadway shows this season would you have shelled out money for?

Brantley: I would have felt cheated having paid for some of them – “A Little Night Music,” though I would have been glad to see Angela Lansbury. “Fences” I would have paid for.

Isherwood: “Fela!,” “American Idiot,” even “Come Fly Away” are trying to do something new, and even though we can lament the loss of the traditional book in these musicals, I would have been happy to pay full price for all of them.”

Brantley: Not “Promises, Promises,” not even at a discount ticket.

Isherwood: I would have paid $125 not to have seen “La Cage aux Folles.”

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NEW YORK TIMES
Elements of Onstage Chemistry by Charles Isherwood
May 16, 2010

Includes a large photo of Keith Roberts and Karine Plantadit

Come Fly Away – Keith Roberts and Karine Plantadit.

It’s not easy to choose a single moment of chemical connection from Twyla Tharp’s swinging celebration of Frank Sinatra’s music, “Come Fly Away.” Ms. Tharp uses a dance vocabulary mixing ballroom and ballet to explore so many facets of the man-woman thing that to select a single pas de deux seems almost arbitrary. Still, for sheer sizzle nothing beats the tempestuous duel performed by Karine Plantadit and Keith Roberts, above, to Sinatra’s recording of “That’s Life,” a defiant anthem about soldiering on in the face of adversity.

That erotic attraction can be a fierce adversary is illustrated with electrifying aplomb by these two remarkable dancers in a breathtaking duet that begins at high intensity and builds from there. He’s a tough guy who doesn’t want to acknowledge the power this particular woman holds over him. She likes to play the field and doesn’t care that he’s singled her out for attention. But their limbs don’t seem to want to obey their wills and keep entangling themselves in ways that appear to defy the limits of human physics. Ms. Tharp’s intricately choreographed battle for supremacy ends in a draw but not before both the magnificently limber Ms. Plantadit and the commanding Mr. Roberts have demonstrated how the powerful connection between two performers can ignite a stage without a word being spoken.

Posted by: Nancy | Apr 28, 2010 6:05 PM | Comments(0)

Sinatra/Jobim: The Complete Reprise Recordings

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — In 1967, Frank Sinatra teamed up with Brazilian singer, pianist, guitarist, composer and songwriter Antonio Carlos Jobim to record an album that married the Chairman’s signature vocals with rhythms from the master of bossa nova. The resulting album, Francis Albert Sinatra/Antonio Carlos Jobim, reached #19, remaining on Billboard’s rock-dominated album chart for 28 weeks.

Forty-four years later, on May 4, 2010, Concord Music Group, on license from Frank Sinatra Enterprises (FSE), will release a deluxe reissue of the Sinatra/Jobim classic including all ten songs from the original album plus seven songs from a subsequent collaboration between the two, and three songs from that session that were not released until decades later, when they were included in a box set. Sinatra/Jobim: The Complete Reprise Recordings features digital remastering and expanded liner notes by Stan Cornyn, longtime head of creative services at Warner/Reprise and author of the book about the Warner Music Group, Exploding.

Sinatra and Jobim gathered at Hollywood’s Western Recorders for three nights, January 30 through February 1, 1967. Jobim brought the beat in the form of bossa nova percussionists and arrangers. Sinatra supplied the producer (Sonny Burke), the string arranger/conductor (Claus Ogerman) and the rest of the orchestra. The resulting session produced ten songs including the classic “The Girl From Impanema” plus “Dindi,” “How Insensitive [Insensatez],” “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars” and six others. (After bidding até a vista to Jobim, Sinatra, on the high of making one of his finest albums ever, stayed at the studio to record a duet with daughter Nancy that would reach #1 on the charts, “Something Stupid.”)

Two years later, Sinatra and Jobim returned to Western Recorders to record ten more bossa novas for a shorter-titled follow-up: Sinatra-Jobim. Replacing Ogerman was a 26-year-old long-haired arranger named Eumir Deodato (later to be known for his 1973 jazz version of Richard Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra [2001]”). The songs were all written or co-written by Jobim, many with unusual melodic twists. Producer Burke enlisted conductor Morris Stoloff to ensure a pop feel to the session.

After three nights, the album was wrapped, and was readied for release in the fall of 1969. The eight-track version of the album had shipped when the call was placed to Warner/Reprise’s Burbank, Calif. offices. It was Sinatra, demanding that the label “kill the album,” so Warner recalled most of the recordings. A 2005 Goldmine story reported that the rare eight-track would command $5000.

Sinatra later agreed to permit Reprise to release seven of the Sinatra-Jobim vocal tracks on the album Sinatra & Company. It reached #73 and remained on the album chart for 15 weeks in 1971.

More than 40 years later, the airport in Rio has been named Antonio Carlos Jobim International. And an American postage stamp honored Frank Sinatra. And the Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim and Sinatra-Jobim albums have been combined to form Concord’s Sinatra/Jobim: The Complete Reprise Recordings set.

Track Listing

Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim

01. 01/31/67 The Girl from Ipanema (Gârota de Ipanema)
02. 01/30/67 Dindi
03. 01/30/67 Change Partners
04. 01/31/67 Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars (Corcovado)
05. 01/31/67 Meditation (Meditação)
06. 01/31/67 If You Never Come to Me (Inútil Passagem)
07. 02/01/67 How Insensitive (Insensatez)
08. 01/30/67 I Concentrate on You
09. 01/30/67 Baubles, Bangles and Beads
10. 02/01/67 Once I Loved (O Amor Em Paz)

Sinatra Jobim

11. 02/13/69 Song of the Sabiá (Sabiá)
12. 02/12/69 Drinking Water (Água de Beber)
13. 02/12/69 Someone to Light Up My Life (Se Todos Fossem Iguais a Você)
14. 02/13/69 Triste
15. 02/13/69 This Happy Madness (Estrada Branca)
16. 02/11/69 One Note Samba (Samba de Uma Nota Só)
17. 02/11/69 Don’t Ever Go Away (Por Causa de Você)
18. 02/11/69 Wave
19. 02/12/69 Off Key (Desafinado)
20. 02/12/69 Bonita

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DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE EDITORS’ PICKS
BY ED ENRIGHT
Frank Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim,
Sinatra/Jobim: The Complete Reprise Recordings (Concord )

Concord has released a deluxe reissue of the classic recording that Frank Sinatra made with Antonio Carlos Jobim for Reprise in 1967. It includes all 10 songs from the original album, plus 10 cuts from a subsequent collaboration between the two. Jobim provided the bossa nova percussionists and arrangers for the session, while Sinatra supplied the producer (Sonny Burke), conductor (Claus Ogerman) and the orchestra. Sinatra sounds great, even on a few of the overly sweetened tracks, and guitarist Jobim lends his vocal support in all the right places.

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For more information please contact:
Cary Baker • conqueroo • (323) 656-1600 • cary@conqueroo.com
Lellie Capwell • Sacks & Co. • (818) 384-1180 • Lellie@sacksco.com (For FSE)

Posted by: Nancy | Mar 31, 2010 7:02 PM | Comments(8)

Come Fly Away Spot

Posted by: Nancy | Mar 31, 2010 7:02 PM | Comments(3)