Re: Sinatra

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

>Which makes good sense if you think, as many critics (myself among them)
>that among Sinatra's greatest strengths was his phrasing -- so much so
>that even when the intonation is less than perfect the results can be
>enthralling.
>
>George Robinson
>

Jonathan Schwartz--radio DJ, among other things, and Sinatra aficianado, 
among other things--observed with marvelous subtlety after his death that 
Sinatra was the only singer he'd ever heard who could sing a semicolon.

--Robert Cohen

P.S. And a second recollection comes to mind now that I've written this:  On 
a PBS Harold Arlen special, I _saw_ (as well as, of course, heard) Sinatra 
sing "One for My Baby" (the one that begins "It's a quarter past 
three"--which MTM so perfectly goofily murders in an MTM episode); I don't 
think I'd ever heard him sing the song; and the song's become such a cliche 
that I never actually listen to it (i.e., open my heart as well as ears).  I 
listened now, though, and have kept the tape; he manages to dead-perfectly 
*say*/sing the lyrics--I started to write "as though conversing (i.e., to 
the bartender)," which is, indeed, exactly the context of the lyric, but 
Sinatra *is* conversing--but without a trace of the self-consciousness that 
would drag down most singers trying to do that.  (They'd be singing, "I know 
I'm supposed to be singing this song like I was conversing, so, see, I'm 
conversing.)  It's limpidly, understatedly, the text/monologue of the 
song--and reminds me that a writing teacher once taught that good writing is 
like a perfectly clear window--you don't see the window.  Sinatra at his 
best is like that:  There's no window--just the heart of the singer, and the 
song.  You can see right through.





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