» CD Review: Frank Sinatra Live At The Meadowlands and My Way 40th Anniversary Edition

From the first downbeat of the orchestra, you know something exciting is about to happen. They quickly take us through a medley of some of his better known songs as in an overture to a Broadway show. Then he appears on stage, opening to a standard from the Tommy Dorsey days, Without a Song … slower than what we are used to hearing, swinging confidently, soft when it needs to be, and belting when he must.

One soggy day in March 1986, Frank Sinatra returned to New Jersey to perform just minutes from his hometown. Frank Sinatra Enterprises and Concord Music have blessed fans with this first release of the recording of that concert Live At The Meadowlands.

The concert was held in a sports arena that holds 20,000; but the acoustics on this album create the atmosphere of a nightclub more consistent with other great Sinatra shows we know and love. In that sense, this recording is beautiful complement to the recently released four CD set, Sinatra Vegas (2006) and Live from Las Vegas (2005). The orchestra consists of well-known names from the honor roll of Sinatra musicians. Led by long time Sinatra pianist Bill Miller, they include Tony Mottola on guitar, Don Baldini on bass, and Irv Cotler on drums. This is a reunion of greats with the greatest interpreter of the American standard, in the backyard of where it all started for him.

After the opening number we, like the audience, settle in, Sinatra having firmly established once again his domain in song. He then welcomes us right away … “It seems we stood and we talked like this … once before…” with Rodgers and Hart’s Where or When, but tonight singing it slowly and purposefully, capturing the joyful nostalgia of old friends meeting again after many years. Sinatra is back! The program includes the sentimental and romantic Moonlight in Vermont (Blackburn/ Suessdorf) requiring exacting breath control that we hear in other concerts from a younger Sinatra from Melbourne (1959) to Paris (1962). Hearing it again live 25 years later, as well as other challenging ballads, My Heart Stood Still (Rodgers and Hart) and Someone to Watch Over Me (Gershwin), all sung so poignantly by the master of the ballad, somehow teases deeper meaning from the lyrics. And what Sinatra concert would be without a torch song from this self-defined saloon singer? Sinatra slakes our thirst at the appropriate moment in the program with the opening words, “It’s a quarter to three …” from “the daddy of saloon songs” One More For My Baby (Mercer/Arlen), perfectly punctuated by Miller’s sparsely placed piano notes. Frank invites us to sit with him at the bar where he helps us contemplate the long road ahead after having just lost the love of our life. The concert includes a fair quantity of great jazz numbers like the smoky and sultry Come Rain or Come Shine (Mercer/Arlen) and a hard swinging Mack the Knife from L.A. Is My Lady, an album Sinatra released the year prior. On that album, the greatest jazz musicians gathered by producer Quincy Jones talked about the hair rising on the back of their necks listening to Sinatra’s perfect phrasing as they played. Live At The Meadowlands demonstrates such a phenomenon is not exclusive to the recording studio!

This first release of the Meadowlands concert album will be accompanied by the re-release of the Sinatra classic album My Way 40th Anniversary Edition. There are two reasons to buy this release even if you own the original My Way. First, the acoustics are richer and deeper with less reverberation than the original. Frank sounds closer to microphone which picks up more of the midrange and bass tones that create deep intimacy and complex texture in the ballads: Yesterday (McCartney), Jacques Brel’s wonderfully poetic If You Go Away (Ne Me Quitte Pas), and the beautifully melancholic A Day in the Life of a Fool (Sigman/Bonfa/Demoraes) … imagine roaming the streets looking for your girl the day after bending the bartender’s ear at a quarter to three! The second reason is that the 40th Anniversary Edition includes a concert version of My Way in addition to the famous original studio version. It also gives us an inside look at Sinatra rehearsing Stevie Wonder’s For Once in My Life—a song he performs on this album and in the Meadowlands concert. These are rare treats indeed.

For any Sinatraphile, these two albums are necessary additions to your library and will give you hours of enjoyment. Our gratitude goes to Frank Sinatra Enterprises and Concord Music for adding to the Sinatra discography.

LIVE AT THE MEADOWLANDS

Track Listing
1.    Overture
2.    “Without A Song”
3.    “Where Or When”
4.    “For Once In My Life”
5.    “Nice ’N’ Easy”
6.    “My Heart Stood Still”
7.    “Change Partners”
8.    “It Was A Very Good Year”
9.    “You Make Me Feel So Young”
10. “The Gal That Got Away”
11.   “Theme From New York, New York”
12.   Monologue
13.   “Come Rain Or Come Shine”
14.   “Bewitched”
15.   “Moonlight In Vermont”
16.   “L.A. Is My Lady”
17.   “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”
18.   “Someone To Watch Over Me”
19.   “One For My Baby”
20.   “Mack The Knife”
Live At The Meadowlands and My Way 40th Anniversary Edition on sale May 5: