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Oscar Peterson: Sinatra Portrait

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A zillion jazz tributes to Frank Sinatra have been recorded over the decades. One of the first and best is Oscar Peterson's A Jazz Portrait of Frank Sinatra. The album”s marathon recording session was done for Verve in a single night in Paris in May 1959. The album featured what would become the classic Oscar Peterson Trio—featuring Peterson (p), Ray Brown (b) and Ed Thigpen (d). Thigpen had been added months earlier to replace guitarist Herb Ellis, who threw in the towel on Peterson's relentless touring schedule.

Looking back at Billboard's review of the album in 1961, I found the following: “Performers of lesser stature than Peterson sometimes use such a device to associate themselves with a noted personality, but when a great artist like Peterson uses such a device, it has legitimacy. A fine album, with Peter's keyboard work at its apex."

You can say that again. The album is an elegant, exquisite swinger, with more than just music at play. There's admiration and love in Peterson”s interpretations. Writing in his 1988 book, Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing, Gene Lees pulls the strings tight on the relationship between Peterson and Sinatra:

“One of Oscar's most ardent fans has been Frank Sinatra, who at the end of an evening in Las Vegas told the audience, 'I don't know where you people are heading, but I know here I'm going. I'm going over to catch Oscar Peterson.' And, of course, he jammed the club where Oscar was playing. Eric [Smith, Peterson's friend] remembered: 'One time when Oscar was playing the Hong Kong bar in Los Angles, Frank called and said that he had a party on Friday. He said, I have always wanted you to come up and play in my home. Would you do it? Oscar said, I don't know how I can do it. I work till one. Frank said, That's fine. Please do it. Oscar said, All right. I'll make a deal with you. I'll play if you sing. And Sinatra agreed."

When Peterson arrived, there were 12 guests, including agent Irving Lazar, black comedian Godfrey Cambridge, the widow of restaurateur Mike Romanoff, dancers Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly along with their wives. Lees continues with Eric Smith's story: “I went behind the sofa and sat at the bar. I got talking to Mike Romanoff's widow before Oscar started to play, and she said, You can't believe how excited Frank has been about this. He has been like a schoolboy. He planned the evening, who he was going to invite and who he wasn't. He said that after dinner, there was going to be a treat, but he wouldn't' say what it was.

Wow. All I'll say is that there must be a reel of tape someplace of Sinatra singing with Peterson that night. The Sinatra family must have it.

Sinatra's admiration for Peterson was mutual. On the back of his 1959 tribute album, Peterson writes: “For years, I have been an ardent admirer of Frank Sinatra. I've been thrilled by his signing and I've respected the taste that goes with his singing. As a musician, I've further admired his choice of tunes and as a fan I've recognized that certain tunes are forever, at least in my mind, inextricably linked with Sinatra, both by usage and interpretation, and by that special magic that is his alone. This album is not only a tribute to Frank Sinatra but also my emotional interpretation of the feelings I get when I hear him. I have tried, therefore, to paint as well as I can a portrait told in my personal jazz terms, of Frank Sinatra."

Why was this album recorded in Paris? Peterson appears to have been on tour in Europe at the time with Jazz at the Philharmonic. Who came up with the idea of a Sinatra tribute album? Hard to say. It could have been Peterson or producer Norman Granz. What was the urgency to record it in Paris vs. Los Angeles? My guess is because Peterson wanted plenty of time to record as many Sinatra songs as he could and they had only one night to get the job done. A studio in Paris would have been free from the American Federation of Musicians' regulations limiting such a session.

Even more important, what ever happened to the four unissued tracks? Left off the album were Violets for Your Furs, Young at Heart, Try a Little Tenderness and Someone to Watch Over Me.

It's time for Verve to look in the vaults and reissue the entire album with the missing tracks and the best alternate takes. According to my research, there were multiple versions of all of the songs recorded. With any luck, we'll see Oscar Peterson: The Complete Jazz Portrait of Frank Sinatra in short order.

JazzWax clips: Here's Saturday Night Is the Loneliest Night of the Week...

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This story appears courtesy of JazzWax by Marc Myers.
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