Sinatra Jr. bringing dad's music to town

By JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 8:27 AM PDT ∞

For anyone over the age of 35 or so, it seems nearly impossible to believe it's been a decade since Frank Sinatra died. Beginning with his days as lead singer with Harry James' band in the late 1930s, Sinatra was a regular presence on the music charts up through the mid-1990s, when he recorded a pair of best-selling "Duets" albums featuring guest performances with everyone from Bono to Jimmy Buffett to Chrissie Hynde.

Oh, wait ---- did we write "was" on the charts?

Frank Sinatra Jr., son of the legend, pointed out in a telephone interview last week that a compilation of his dad's 1960s material, "Nothing But the Best," is on the charts right now, sitting at about No. 12 after peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard albums list shortly after its release in May.

"It's not very often you will run into a recording artist who is dead 10 years who is still selling albums," Sinatra said from his Los Angeles-area home, adding that he is "very pleasantly surprised" at his father's continuing popularity.

Sinatra Jr. is performing three dates in the county this week with the San Diego Symphony, covering his father's top hits from a six-decade career. "Sinatra Sings Sinatra" opens locally Thursday at the Moonlight Amphitheatre in Vista's Brengle Terrace Park with a free show (first-come, first-served, with tickets being handed out at the amphitheater ticket office beginning at 4 p.m.) before moving to San Diego's Embarcadero Marina Park South for the weekend.

When asked to explain his father's enduring popularity, Sinatra cited no less than his father's one-time idol and later friend, Bing Crosby.

"Somebody asked Bing Crosby what is this thing about Sinatra, why is he so popular. Bing thought about it and said, 'Sinatra is the only one of us who really gets to all the age groups.' "

Sinatra Jr. said he first noticed young people getting turned on to the great popular music of the 1930s through '50s while on a tour in 1997.

"In 1997, we were between the birth year anniversaries of Ira Gerswhin in 1896 and George Gerwshin in 1898; they called it the Gershwin centennial. We traveled with a 55-piece orchestra to 10 cities, mostly outdoor things on summer nights.

"We had thousands of people come to these concerts. I was amazed at the number of young people ---- 8, 12, 14, 18, 20 ---- who sat there enamored with what they were hearing. They said, 'You know, I never heard music like that before.' This is quite a testament.

"I honestly believe that if our young people were really exposed to the better music, they would learn to love it. But they don't hear it."

Sinatra himself could be considered an example of a young person falling in love with a previous generation's music. Born in 1944, he was chronologically of the rock 'n' roll generation. And being the son and namesake of one of the most popular singers in history, he could have been excused for choosing any path but the one he actually took in life ---- one most biographers report his own father urged him to avoid.

But Sinatra Jr. fell in love with the same music as his father, and while other singers his age spent the '60s and '70s shimmying in leather and denim, Sinatra Jr. was singing the standards in a tuxedo in nightclubs. In the 1980s and '90s, he became his father's musical director, an experience he called a remarkable "education."

And he'll draw on that education for his "Sinatra Sings Sinatra" show.

"Because we're using the original orchestrations, which were his, what happens is I try to make the orchestra and myself sound as close to the original as possible for the simple reason that the people in our audience are the Sinatra fans. With that thought in mind, if we do it differently or the sound is different they may not be able to put their finger on what it is, but they're going to know something is wrong."

As to why the age of the Great American Songbook came to an end in the 1960s, why there have been so few songs for a serious singer to tackle written since his father's heyday, Sinatra said popular tastes changed ---- and songwriters followed suit.

"The problem is, some years ago, regrettably, the entire music industry turned away from that kind of music and they went to the simplistic rock format. There may be four harmonic changes in the whole four, five minutes of redundant, boring music.

"There is a movement around to just discover better things. When you consider that, beginning in 1982 with a rock music singer named Linda Ronstadt, she started doing better music with Nelson Riddle. Then came Rod Stewart, and they're all turning to better music."

As for the future of the Great American Songbook, with young singers like Michael Buble and Peter Cincotti carrying the torch for torch music to a new generation, well, don't count Sinatra as a fan.

"I've listened to them and I'm not particularly impressed. They don't have that presence yet," he said of Buble and Cincotti.

Are they capable of becoming top-flight singers, in his view?

"I hope they do, because they're making better music."

"Sinatra Sings Sinatra": Frank Sinatra Jr. with the San Diego Symphony

When: 7:30 p.m. June 26

Where: Moonlight Amphitheatre, Brengle Terrace Park, 1200 Vale Terrace, Vista

Admission: Free

Info: (760)758-9167 or moonlightstage.com

When: 7:30 p.m. June 27 and 28

Where: Embarcadero Marina Park South, 206 Marina Park Way, San Diego (behind the San Diego Convention Center)

Tickets: $15-$75

Info: (619) 235-0804 or sandiegosymphony.com