Sinatra’s last performance

Here, in audio only, is Frank Sinatra’s last performance, from the Palm Desert Marriott Ballroom, Palm Desert, California, February 25, 1995. The occasion: a short performance for the closing of the Frank Sinatra Golf Tournament. Six songs: “I've Got The World On A String” (Harold Arlen–Ted Koehler), “You Make Me Feel So Young” (Josef Myrow–Mack Gordon), “Fly Me To The Moon” (Bart Howard), “Where or When” (Richard Rodgers–Lorenz Hart), “My Kind Of Town” (Jimmy Van Heusen–Sammy Cahn), and “The Best Is Yet To Come” (Cy Coleman–Carolyn Leigh). Sinatra is no doubt reading lyrics from teleprompters throughout. The orchestra is led by his son, Frank Jr.

My favorite moments:

~ in “I've Got The World On A String,” the choice Sinatra word marvelous (with mid-Atlantic prounciation) substituting for beautiful
~ the second chorus of “You Make Me Feel So Young”
~ the mid-Atlantic pronunciation of worship in “Fly to the Moon”
~ all of “Where or When,” with a singer sounding decades younger
~ all of “The Best Is Yet to Come”

That last song here sounds to me like the best of the six. The start is not promising — Sinatra asks “Who wrote this?” and misses his entrance. His pianist, Bill Miller, covers perfectly. I love the “aah” at 21:08 and the way Sinatra softens his voice in the final bars, before shifting to a growl. As in “Where or When,” he sounds like a much younger singer.

According to Jonathan Schwartz’s eyewitness account, “And Now the End is Near” (Esquire, May 1995), Sinatra was supposed to sing just the first four songs, a short set put together by Frank Jr. Thank goodness that the impromptu additions did not include “My Way” or “New York, New York.”

Years later, on his radio show, Schwartz said that he had asked an Esquire editor if the magazine would be interested in an article about what would be Sinatra’s last performance. How did Schwartz know it would be the last? “Trust me on this,” Schwartz told the editor. The event drew no other notice from the press.

Frank Sinatra died in 1998. On his gravestone: “The Best Is Yet to Come.”

*

At some point both recordings disappeared from YouTube. The link to Jonathan Schwartz’s radio show had Schwartz‘s account of the performance and just one song, “The Best Is Yet to Come.”

*

July 31, 2020: The performance is back on YouTube, this time with video. Get it before it’s gone. That one’s gone. But here it is again.

From my dad’s CDs

I’m still making my way through my dad’s CDs: Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, Ivie Anderson, Louis Armstrong, Fred Astaire, Mildred Bailey, Count Basie, Tony Bennett, Art Blakey, Ruby Braff and Ellis Larkins, Clifford Brown, Dave Brubeck, Joe Bushkin, Hoagy Carmichael, Betty Carter, Ray Charles, Charlie Christian, Rosemary Clooney, Nat “King” Cole, John Coltrane, Bing Crosby, Miles Davis, Matt Dennis, Doris Day, Blossom Dearie, Paul Desmond, Tommy Dorsey, Billy Eckstine, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Erroll Garner, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Stéphane Grappelli, Bobby Hackett, Coleman Hawkins, Woody Herman, Earl Hines, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Dick Hyman, Harry James, Hank Jones, Louis Jordan, Stan Kenton, Barney Kessel, Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, Peggy Lee, Mary Ann McCall, Susannah McCorkle, Dave McKenna, Ray McKinley, Marian McPartland, Johnny Mercer, Helen Merrill, Glenn Miller, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Thelonious Monk, Wes Montgomery, Gerry Mulligan, Red Norvo, Anita O’Day, Charlie Parker, Joe Pass, Art Pepper, Oscar Peterson, Bud Powell, Boyd Raeburn, Django Reinhardt, Marcus Roberts, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Rushing, Catherine Russell, the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, Artie Shaw, George Shearing, Horace Silver, and now, Frank Sinatra, about two days’ worth of Sinatra.

Here, via YouTube, from Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely (1958), are two of what Sinatra called “saloon songs.” My dad never smoked, never drank, and almost certainly never set foot in a saloon. These songs are just great music, saloon or no saloon:

“Angel Eyes” (Matt Dennis–Earl Brent)
“One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” (Harold Arlen–Johnny Mercer)

The arrangements are by Nelson Riddle. Bill Miller, Sinatra’s longtime pianist, is prominent on “One for My Baby.” Both songs resist embedding. Which reminds of the Irving Gordon song: “Unembeddable, that’s what you are.”

With Sinatra behind me, four smaller mountain ranges have come into view: Jo Stafford, Art Tatum, Mel Tormé, and Lee Wiley.

Also from my dad’s CDs
Mildred Bailey : Tony Bennett : Charlie Christian : Blossom Dearie : Duke Ellington : Coleman Hawkins : Billie Holiday : Louis Jordan : Charlie Parker : Jimmy Rushing : Artie Shaw

[Once in a great while, I played this recording of “One for My Baby” at the end of a semester. Perfect for a class that let out at 2:50.]

“Tools of the Trade”

[“French Paper A–Z and Tools of the Trade Poster.” Charles S. Anderson Design Co., Minneapolis. Jovaney Hollingsworth, designer and illustrator. Made for French Paper Co. As found at Print. Click for much larger supplies.]

CNN, sheesh

Seen a few minutes ago, not in the ticker but in the chyron:

WH: TRUMP ASKING CONFIDENTS IF KUSHNER DID ANYTHING WRONG

From Garner’s Modern English Usage:

Until 1700 or so, the English word was confident (= a trusty friend or adherent), the correct French forms being confident and confidente. But early in the 18th century, English writers began substituting an -a- for the -e- in the final syllable, perhaps because of the French nasal pronunciation of -ent and -ente.

Today the forms confidant and confidante predominate in both AmE and BrE, though confidante is falling into disuse because of what is increasingly thought to be a needless distinction between males and females.

Dunning K. Trump may still have confidants, but very few people I know have ever been confident in him or in those around him.

Related reading
All OCA sheesh posts (Pinboard)

From the Saturday Stumper

A nice clue from today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Lester Ruff, 29-Across, four letters: “Sound of thinking.” No spoilers; the answer is in the comments.

The name “Lester Ruff” appears to be another pseudonym for Stan Newman, the Newsday crossword editor, though this name does not appear on a page explaining Newman’s pseudonyms. Lester Ruff = less rough. But this puzzle was difficult. And now done.

Molly Worthen on assessment

In The New York Times, Molly Worthen writes about assessment in higher education:

It’s true that old-fashioned course grades, skewed by grade inflation and inconsistency among schools and disciplines, can’t tell us everything about what students have learned. But the ballooning assessment industry — including the tech companies and consulting firms that profit from assessment — is a symptom of higher education’s crisis, not a solution to it. It preys especially on less prestigious schools and contributes to the system’s deepening divide into a narrow tier of elite institutions primarily serving the rich and a vast landscape of glorified trade schools for everyone else. . . .

It seems that the pressure to assess student learning outcomes has grown most quickly at poorly funded regional universities that have absorbed a large proportion of financially disadvantaged students, where profound deficits in preparation and resources hamper achievement.

Well, yes. At my poorly funded regional university, assessment fever rages. In my final year of teaching, faculty were directed to include a course-catalogue description and a list of thirty “University Learning Outcomes” in every syllabus — about 480 words of extra content. I managed that with a single-spaced page in 9-point type.

Worthen quotes a British academic, Frank Furedi, whose words apply to any number of American colleges:

“When kids come from backgrounds where they’re the first in their families to go to college, we have to take them seriously, and not flatter them and give them third-rate ideas. They need to be challenged and inspired by the idea of our disciplines. One of the horrible things is that many universities think that giving access to nontraditional students means turning a university into a high school. That’s not giving them access to higher education.”

See also this post on higher education as a two-tier system: “A fully realized adult person.”

[Thanks to Matt Thomas, without whom I would have missed this Times piece. I’ve put two separate comments from Furedi together for ease of reading.]

Yet another Henry gum machine

[Henry, March 2, 2017.]

Where would we be without streetside mirrors? Oh — in modern times.

Related reading
All OCA Henry posts (Pinboard)

And still more gum machines
Henry : Henry : Henry : Perry Mason : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry

Aldi coffee

An Aldi find: German Roasted Ground Coffee, 17.6 ounces for $4.99. The package says “robust & creamy,” and it’s true: this coffee is especially rich, with a thickness that makes me think of cocoa. Disclaimer: I’m not a fancy-pants coffee drinker. I don’t roast beans or use a scale or thermometer. But I like a good cup of coffee. Pairs well with UPC.

10p coins, A to Z

From the Royal Mint, ten-pence coins, celebrating British culture from A to Z. The art is sometimes off: F, for fish and chips, is ghastly. But at least T is tea. “Us Brits love a cup of tea,” says the Mint. (Really.) More here: “Q Is for Queuing” (The New York Times).

All Illinois is divided into three parts

I listened tonight to a radio debate among the Democratic candidates for Illinois governor. The most interesting of them, by far: Robert Marshall. Said he: “I have ideas that nobody has.” Though I’m not sure that’s what one might want in a governor.

Among this candidate’s ideas: dividing Illinois into three states. Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, the issues page of the candidate’s website makes no mention of this proposal. And clicking on the link Governor Race yields only the announcement “Content Coming Soon.” But an explanation of the three-state solution can be found in an “introductory news release.”

[Post title with apologies to Julius Caesar.]