Customer Reviews

Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color

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For a singer known as 'The Voice', the idea of an instrumental album sounds odd, and the title does little to inspire a mad rush to the record store. However, Sinatra loved classical musical and probably enjoyed commissioning this collection of works from the likes of Nelson Riddle, Billy May, Gordon Jenkins, Victor Young and others.

A very different kind of Sinatra. For years this was a difficult album to find (I recall finding one at a used record store for seven dollars, in a cracked case, and it was a great discovery), so the reissue is welcome. If you enjoy classical music, you will find this intriguing. If you cherish the hard swing of Sinatra and Riddle or May, this may not be your cup of tea. To some extent, Sinatra's voice was the most expressive instrument of his era, however, and the attitude and angst that made FS a legend are missed. Sinatra fans will want to add this to their collection, though. It is a thoroughly enjoyable recording -- alternately upbeat and somber (Nelson Riddle's pieces are especially fine) -- that reflects Sinatra's passion for music at a time when commercial considerations had not displaced artistry in the recording industry.

This was one of my first recordings in my early record collection back in my college days. I remember listening and reading the poems with a friend late at night at a conference in Pittsburgh; Mellon Institute. In later years I was to meet Alec Wilder and work with him on some music from taped improvisations by Bill Evans. Not too much later I was to use one of the poems and compositions at my wife's memorial service.
This is an enduring collection, and it's too bad so few people know about it, and sad too there aren't more of these Lps (1956) or CDs (1996?) available.
Because the poems and the music are each different and separate, it's not like hearing a complete work, but a series held together by sounds of colors. It's a really excellent program and can set one to introspection. Some additional information can be found here (not my information) [...]

TONE POEMS OF COLOR, conducted (ostensibly) by Frank Sinatra, is a collection of lovely short orchestral works. Eight accomplished Hollywood composers, including Sinatra arrangers Alec Wilder, Gordon Jenkins, Nelson Riddle and Billy May, contribute.

Jenkins's "Green", a yearning romantic melody for strings, will immediately please. Riddle's "Gold" is a Ravellian bolero and his "Orange" begins as if it were Les Baxter exotica and finishes like a Broadway show tune. May's "Purple" begins quietly, only halfway through arriving at the big brassy sound one would expect from him - and then doesn't linger there.

Film score fans will appreciate the Victor Young, Elmer Bernstein and Andre Previn compositions. All three of these Hollywood giants deliver signature sounds. Young's "Black", for strings with piano accompaniment, is broad, deep and dark. Previn's "Red" is the album's most melodramatic and "filmy" track. For me, the biggest surprise in this collection is Bernstein's "Silver", which sounds a little like Ravel's "La Valse" conjoined with an edit from THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM! Lesser known is Jeff Alexander. His "Yellow" is especially playful and showy.

Some might quip that an album of music conducted by Sinatra is about as much good as one of Nelson Riddle singing. That would miss the point, wouldn't it? This is appealing music and if we learn of it through Sinatra's involvement that's a good thing.

I bought this knowing that it couldn't be all bad, since FS held to high standards. I was pleasantly surprised when i played it. The selections are upbeat and very tuneful. I found myself listening to it again a couple hours later, and was just as entertained. I don't know much about how bands and orchestras a managed, but i do know that this is a very well conducted set of numbers that make me feel like the day is all sunshine and merriment. Steve

So glad to have found this CD. I did a couple of modern dances in high school back in 1957 to a number of colors. Back then it was a 33 1/3 record. The imagery of the colors through poems and music were and still are inspiring. You can visualize the colors in the music.

Sinatra always had a yen to be a conductor, and while this wasn't the first time he recorded in that capacity, Tone Poems of Color is one of the most visible. Sure, the poetry on which these pieces are based has all the insight into the human condition as that of Ken Nordine or Rod McKuen, but some of the music is actually fairly good. Elmer Bernstein and Nelson Riddle fare very well, but the best pieces belong to Alec Wilder, friend and mentor to Sinatra and author of one of the best books on classic pop, American Popular Song, and the vastly underrated Victor Young, film scorer and one of the great songwriters of the classic pop era. Young unfortunately died not too long after this album came out in the summer of 1956, winning his only Oscar posthumously for the score of the travelogue film Around the World in Eighty Days.

Sinatra handles the baton well, considering his lack of any formal training, although accounts vary as to how much Felix Slatkin, leader of the Hollywood String Quartet and de facto concertmaster for many of Sinatra's recordings, picked up the slack when necessary. An interesting curio in Sinatra's great career at Capitol records.

To correct some misleading info in other reviews, Jeff Alexander and Alexander Courage are not the same guy, and the Amazon reviewer mistook Sleep Warm as Sinatra's other 'major baton job.' That honor, as such, goes to Peggy Lee's very good 1957 LP The Man I Love, with arrangements by Riddle, conducted by Sinatra, which is available as an import on EMI International, coupled with 1961's If You Go.

Even though it is said that Mr. Sinatra couldn't read music, he nevertheless was able to conduct this instrumental album to good effect. As reviewer Ricky Wright states Mr. Sinatra did a commendable job conducting Dean Martin's album called "Sleep Warm". Frank also did the conducting chores on another album at Captiol with Peggy Lee. Both are currently unavailable on CD.