"It Might As Well Be Spring!"

My absolute favorite song in this lovely CD is Rodgers & Hammerstein's "It Might As Well Be Spring." What makes this song super special are its flawless arrangement and orchestration by none other than a great arranger/conductor Don Costa and Mr. Sinatra's interpretation, which is the sweetest, smoothest and the very best version I've ever heard! No other crooner can top this Sinatra masterpiece! This version is even better than the version arranged by Nelson Riddle in "Days of Wine and Roses -Academy Award Winners." Listen closely as he sings this stanza .... it's almost like a caress and an ultimate serenade.



"I'm as busy as a spider

spinning daydreams....

spinning .... spinning daydreams...

I'm as giddy as a baby on a swing...

I haven't seen a crocus or a rosebud

or a robin on the wing...

But I feel so gay in a melancholy way

that it might as well be spring...

It might as ... well be ... spring."



This is the first Sinatra recording with arranger Don Costa and I would say that the arrangements are greatly influenced by Axel Stordahl's style. Both are two of my favorites whom I consider as the 'romantics-among-Sinatra-arrangers' who had extraordinary abilities in making the loveliest and the most beautiful arrangements on Sinatra's recordings.



This superb CD is a keeper and you'll enjoy listening to the Chairman's heartfelt performances most remarkably his unique and shortened but the greatest version of Carmichael/Parish "Stardust," Cole Porter's "Night And Day," Garner/Burke's "Misty," Arlen/Mercer's "Come Rain Or Come Shine" and Haymes/Brandt's "That's All."



This is one of Sinatra's finest recordings ever and one of my all-time favorites. A MUST-HAVE!

Sinatra Masterpiece

Sinatra's first album with Don Costa is a spectacular collaboration that resulted in a timeless musical masterpiece. Frank is at the absolute top of his game, and it shines through one gem after another. These are songs that Duke Ellington characterized as "beyond category:" "Night and Day," by Cole Porter, Jerome Kern's, "Yesterdays," Erroll Garner's "Misty," and "It Might as Well be Spring," by Rodgers and Hammerstein. But it's Frank's interpretations of "Come Rain or Come Shine" by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" that bestow the album with greatness. Costa's orchestra plays an understated introduction to "Stardust," and then Sinatra sings only the verse to the song and completely leaves out the chorus. It gives Carmichael's classic standard a spare, somber, and elegant feel that is almost beyond description. Equally brilliant is Sinatra's passionate, intense, superbly evocative interpretation of "Come Rain or Come Shine." It is the definitive version of that song and ranks among the best ballads that he ever recorded. Costa's lush orchestrations blend perfectly with Frank's deepening baritone, and the heavy emphasis on strings gives the album an operatic feel. You can't list enough superlatives about this album. It's an early example of his work with Reprise from 1961, and it is one of the ten top Sinatra albums of all time. It is classic. It is essential. It is a must-have purchase, and it is PURE SINATRA GOLD!

Superior Sinatra

The early Reprise years are my favorite Sinatra period. He was still singing great songs, and he hadn't yet made any concessions to the pop market which would swamp adult pop music within a very few years. His interpretive skills were still improving from the Capitol Years,and his voice, while deeper and heavier, was more than sufficient to do whatever he wanted. To use a racing analogy; if Sinatra were in a horserace with other quality jazz/pop singers of the period, he was actually increasing his lead over people like Tony Bennett and Nat "King" Cole, who as good as they were, couldn't compete with Sinatra at his best.



"Sinatra and Strings" is Sinatra at his best. It's an extremely dramatic album, with a choice group of love songs, densely arranged by Don Costa. Some of the songs were a bit quaint even for the early 1960's. "Prisoner of Love," with its melodramatic declamation of loneliness and "Yesterdays" which baroquely rhymes "youth" and "forsooth." More recent tunes like "Misty" and "That's All" are some of the best love songs you'll ever hear. The crown jewel is the bluesy "Come Rain or Come Shine" in which Don Costa adds trumpets into a driving string arrangement and Sinatra just nails it. "We'll be happy together/unhappy together/now won't that be just fine." It's a love song for adults.



They used to say you needed to be old enough to buy booze to buy Sinatra. This is music for grownups. Listen and enjoy.