Customer Reviews

It Might As Well Be Swing

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This outing with the Basie Band is a mixed bag: some absolutely outstanding numbers and some perplexingly dumb choices. In brief:
1.Fly me to the Moon: Classic Sinatra. A must have.
2. I Wish You Love: Nicely done. No problem.
3. I Believe in You: Another Classic well done.
4. More: Ehhh, so-so. Adequately done but no great shakes as it is a better instrumental than vocal song.
5. I Can't Stop Loving You: Frank, this wasn't your song! And Quincy Jones what is with the hokey C&W flavored arrangement. Terrible.
6. Hello, Dolly!: Well I could have hated this too, but in the 2nd refrain the Basie Band and Sinatra turn it into a tribute to Louis Armstrong, and for that, it's a keeper.
7. I Wanna Be Around: Good track.
8. The Best is Yet to Come: Worth buying the CD just for this. One of the best songs ever written, done to a fair-thee-well by Quincy Jones, the good Count and Ol'Blue Eyes!
9. The Good Life: Okay.
10. Wives & Lovers: Good cover of an okay tune.

So buy it for tracks 1,3,7 & most especially 8. The first outing with Basie was the best, but these 4 classic songs save this CD from the never-mind pile.

I LOVE this album. I wasn't a big Sinatra fan, but I can understand his appeal. His voice had (at one time) perfect pitch. I bought this for Fly Me to the Moon, but I absolutely love "Hello Dolly, "Wives and Lovers", "More", I Wish you Love", and I Believe in You." The arrangements are stunning and timeless. Beautiful sound, perfect for background.

I took this to a party in March of 1966 when I was a student at the University of Maryland. The host was playing contemporary rocks songs when I slipped this on the Record player. Everybody there wanted to hear this recording. My 25 year old daughter thinks that the "Fly Me to the Moon" is one of the really great songs of all times. Teenagers today would find Sinatra and Basie great. I definately recommend this to any Sinatra buff!

"It Might As Well Be Swing," the second of the Sinatra-Basie collaborations, released in the Summer of 1964, has the distinction of being the first Sinatra album to be made up of completely contemporary material (the oldest tunes in the collection "I Wish You Love" and "Fly Me To The Moon" went back to the 50's; the remaining selections were all written within a 1-3 year span of the album's release).

"Swing" is a vast improvement over the first Sinatra-Basie album which suffered from poor engineering, some awkward arrangements and a tired Sinatra..he had spent the afternoons before the sessions screaming for the Dodgers at Chavez Ravine).

This collection is more of a SINATRA album than the first with the Basie band as support and some slick arrangements by Quincy Jones. Example: Frank, Splank and Quincy practically re-write the syrupy "More" and turn it into a big band swinger. "Fly Me To Moon" transferred from its originial 3/4 tempo into a 4/4 rhythm classic, became a Sinatra concert perennial through the years

"It Might As Well Be Swing" was a huge commmerical success..staying on the Billboard charts for over a year, never once being deleted from the Reprise catalog..

ASIDE: you're not a real Sinatra fan unless you can name the three recordings in which Sinatra sings the word "sacroiliac"

Man, this is by far the best Frank Sinatra album I've heard!

The whole lineup is full of all-stars: Frank on vocals, Count Basie on piano, and Quincy Jones conducting/arranging.

Very upbeat and swinging. Solid songs throughout - no real disappointments on any of them.

And it helps that it's got my favorite Sinatra song "Fly me to the Moon". The only complaint is that it's not long enough.

This music still sounds good to this day - a whopping 40 years later!

Well worth the discounted price.

Okay, if you put a gun to my head and made me pick the best Sinatra studio album, this would be it. That's not to say it's an easy choice -- everything he did between 1952 and 1962 was pretty near perfection. But this one represents some kind of pinnacle -- I don't know if it's the choice of material (new songs, a departure from the standards), the great Basie band, or the tip-top Quincy Jones arrangements. Overall, I'd just say it's the conviction in The Voice and the joy of the musicians playing behind him. Joe Warshawsky is right, though: it was a risk to go with material that in some cases was less than classic. "I Can't Stop Loving You" is a horrible song no matter who sings it (hey, if Sinatra can't swing it, nobody can). But he takes the rest of the songs and...flies them to the moon. Get it; program your playlist to skip "I Can't Stop..." and enjoy.

The second Frank Sinatra and Count Basie collaboration is not as good as their first one, in my opinion. Sure, it does have a higher percentage of swinging arrangements. But it suffers from a poor selection of material. Songs like "I Can't Stop Loving You", "Hello, Dolly!" and "Wives and Lovers" aren't really appropriate for Sinatra. "I Can't Stop Loving You" is particularly bad. Frank doesn't sing country songs as well as his friend Dino. However, there as also some good selections here, such as "Fly Me To the Moon" and "The Best Is Yet To Come". It's a hit and miss album, but Frank's fans will find something to enjoy here.

Love this CD--they don't make music iike this today. What a great voice, arrangements and orchestra to go with great songs!!

This album has generated some classics for Sinatra like 'Fly Me To The Moon'. Also Cy Coleman's 'The Best is Yet To Come' is a killer.

There is that cool casual reading Sinatra used to adopt under a big band like Count Basie's. Pure swing, pure fire, all the tracks.

Quincy Jones' arrangements pair with Neal Hefti's from other Sinatra-Basie collaboration.

Repertoire is unequal but the overall result is delicious.

This album swings - Frank, Splank, Quincy and the band are in top shape and one cannot help but so sing, swing and dance along. I also really liked the addition of Harry "Sweets" Eddison and the string section to the band on a number of tunes. Most of the tunes are great and now belong to the classic AMERICAN songbook and the renditions of "Fly me to the moon" and "The Best is yet to come" are 1st rate Sinatra classics! However, "Helly Dolly", "I can't stop loving you", "More" and "Wives and Lovers" do not fit that category. But then again, Sinatra was probably not trying to create a very DEEP album (as for example with the Concert Sinatra) but rather one that would allow Basie and him to put their own stamp on songs of that day as well as to create a fun album that people could groove with for years - and there is NO question that Frank has succeeded in that regard.