a day ago
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements' Review: Seth MacFarlane Channels the Chairman
Frank Sinatra's incomplete attempt to record Billy Strayhorn's intricate jazz classic 'Lush Life' is one of the most curious episodes in the great singer's immense canon. He commissioned an arrangement from his most accomplished musical director, Nelson Riddle, and planned to include it on his classic ballad album 'Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely.' At the session itself, on May 29, 1958, he got as far as the complete verse and about two lines of the chorus when he abruptly changed his mind. After some dialogue, presumably with the producer, Dave Cavanaugh, we hear Sinatra say loudly that he intends to 'put it aside for about a year!'
That arrangement is one of 12 such rarities being performed by the singer, producer, writer and comic actor Seth MacFarlane on a new album titled 'Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements.' As it happens, 'Lush Life' is the only one of these dozen charts that Sinatra actually took to the studio. It also shows why the singer made the correct decision to abort when he realized that song and arrangement weren't right for him.
Many of the other pieces here, unearthed and given their premieres by Mr. MacFarlane—a pop-music and songbook buff as well as a talented baritone who sings in Sinatra's general sonic sphere, and serves as a worthy stand-in for the Chairman of the Board—are, in fact, lost treasures. The set starts with a warm, swinging treatment of 'Give Me the Simple Life,' a 1945 tune that Bing Crosby inspired Sinatra to sing and which Riddle infuses with his characteristic flutes and trombones. Riddle also contributed a beautiful orchestration of the heartfelt ballad 'Hurry Home.'
Two charts by Billy May are instant classics: To hear this whimsical 'Flying Down to Rio' is to immediately regret that it didn't make the cut of the classic 1958 'Come Fly With Me.' Sinatra hesitated to record 'When Joanna Loved Me,' even in this exceptional Riddle version—although he did sing a different arrangement in concerts in the 1980s—because it was so identified with Tony Bennett, who named his daughter after the song.
