Customer Reviews

Rat Pack: Live at the Sands

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This CD is a slice of history. It is a modified version of the act that Dean, Frank and Sammy came up with to perform at the "Summit" in early 1960.

If you're just after straight music, there are plenty of other CDs to choose from.

As for me, I'll go with the live recordings because they are just that, *ALIVE*. Frank, Dean and Sammy are still as vibrant on the recording as they were in early September, 1963. If you want to laugh at crazy jokes, hear Sammy's incredible impressions or sing along with the timeless tunes, this is the album.

After listening to this CD, I'm hooked on LIVE Rat Pack recordings (I'm in the process of collecting all I can find). I just wish someone would come up with a video of what was happening on stage. I someone makes a DVD, I'll buy it!

If this sounds interesting and you like Sammy, I particularly recommend "Sammy Davis Jr. At the Cocoanut Grove" (recorded in 1962, Reprise). Its all Sammy (although I did mistake Sammy's impressions of Frank for Mr. Sinatra the first few times through.)

:-)

If you love a good time, this CD is guranteed to "leave you swinging..."

Early September 1963...the marquee at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas reads:

DEAN MARTIN
Maybe Frank! Maybe Sammy!

On this new CD (recorded September 7th) there's no "maybes" about it....

Dean, Frank and Sammy give a performance that sums up early 60's cocktail lounge cool...

Dino's opening (the same opening he'd been doing for years) includes "Volare" "On An Evening In Roma" and "I Love Vegas (Paris)"..

Sinatra's set includes material from the "Sinatra-Basie" and "Concert Sinatra" albums plus a beautiful, tender rendition of "Call Me Irresponsible" (then, as Sinatra points out, only 6 months old); interestingly Sinatra's performances of "Only Have Eyes For You" and "Please Be Kind" on this tape far outswing the renditions on the Basie LP.

Sammy does "Lady Is A Tramp," and follows with an impressions-laden "All The Way".

The rest of the disc is classic Rat Pack clowning laced with tons of politically incorrect one liners (Imagine ANYONE saying to Frank and Dean in those days "Hey guys, you know some of that stuff is POLITCIALLY INCORRECT!")...

Dean: "Did you ever see a Jew-Jitsu?"

Dean (to Sammy) "You can sing with me..you can dance with me...you can go to the steam room with me....but just don't TOUCH me!"

Keep in mind this was just weeks after Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech.

It's also interesting to note that this performance occurs just 2 months before the Kennedy assassination and right in the midst of the lurid Sinatra headlines surrounding Sam Giancana and the Cal Neva lodge (weeks later Sinatra would have his Gaming license lifted)...among the celebrities introduced from the audience: "Mr. and Mrs. Tommy Sands!"

The sound quality of the disc is superb, recorded in true stereo, (Sinatra had Reprise tape it for a possible LP called "The Summit"...the album was never released and the tapes buried).

"Live At The Sands" captures the Rat Pack's last gasp...Dallas and the subsequent turmoil of the 60's made much of their material irrelevant, but it shows the country's leading adult swingers at the peak of their powers in the town they made their playground.

The pseudo-hip liner notes are by Bill Zehme who wrote the 1998 Sinatra book "The Way You Wear Your Hat"

....and the payoff's huge for every listener. Another example of why every vault in every studio should be opened is this great "summit meeting" of three of the biggest and best entertainers in the world, found recently and released by the good people at Capitol Records. Here we have Frank, Dino and Sammy on familiar turf, Jack Entratter's Sands Hotel. All three are in spectacular form, but special mention must be given to Dean's being particularly in swingin' form and not quite so laid back. He gets a nice launching pad with a medley of "I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine" and "I Love Paris" (rendered as I Love VEGAS) with special referential lyrics written no doubt by Sammy Cahn for Ol' RED Eyes. Listen to the fun Dean has when he wanders through "June In January" with Antonio Morelli's orchestra (see kudos to them later) Anyone fortunate enough to have the great 2 CD set on the Jazz Hour label (The Villa Venice, Chicago IL concert from '62) will know most of the jokes and punch lines here, but there are a few new ones. The usual set up finds Dean opening for Frank, and Frank comes on and does his thing with the usual flair, with a very swingin' set, interspersed with ballads ("My Heart Stood Still" and the "7-month old song" of the time, Cahn and Van Heusen's "Call Me Irresponsible") Of course, "Luck Be A Lady' closes Frank's segment, and then it's Sammy's turn. To anyone else, it's a most inenviable task to follow someone like Sinatra, but Sammy always did, and did it with verve. He "steals" one of Sinatra's numbers in "The Lady Is A Tramp" and blasts his way through it. During the stretch we're treated to the "salad bar" speech, one of the many monologues the Rat Pack so often did when in concert. The Italians take two songs from "Guys and Dolls" and swing their way through them, backed by the aforementioned Antonio Morelli orchestra, whose work on this date (and any other, for that matter, as they often backed anyone who worked in L.V. at this time, including Sammy on his "THAT'S ALL" 2 CD set recently released) is nothing short of exquisite. This orchestra never hit one bad note. The guys had their comfort zones in the pit, though, if you will. (Dean had his piano player Ken Lane; Frank had Bill Miller; and Sammy had band leader George Rhodes and some of his own orchestra on the scene.) A fantastic CD release to sink your teeth into and go back to an easier time and definitely swing to! Thank you Capitol, and thank you Frank, Dean and Sammy!

Many fans have Sinatra albums, or albums by Dean or Sammy. But oh how those albums convey the heart of the singer, the live performance conveys the soul. What a sight it must have been to see them perform live at the Sands in their heyday - commanding the room, sharing their songs and lives in an unique give and take. Luckily, for those of us who never made it to Vegas (or were not born when they Rat Pack ruled), there is this album. It brings you in and plunks you down in the audience. You feel Dean Martin's celebration of life and living it right in his medley of "drinking" songs as he wraps himself around you and brings you into his confidence. And Frank just arrives and commands the room for his set, yielding it to Dean and then Frank in give and take banter and shared songs. Sometimes the quality is not the greatest, and sometimes the references are dated (or unremembered), but they represent performers at the top of their careers. One thing that needs to be kept in mind is that the Rat Pack were far from PC, and some of the banter may seem shocking insensitive today, but was just part of their world then.

Still, if you are a fan of the Rat Packers, or of lounge music in general, this album belongs in your collection. It is just a great and unique album to enjoy.

If you're undecided about whether to buy this CD or not...BUY IT! Yes, alot of the same tunes are on here that are on "The Summit" and the boys still do mostly the same schtick...but THIS ONE is PERFECT! The sound is (as advertised) pristene and you are there in the center of the Copa Room on Sept. 7, 1963.

Highlights are Dino's parody "I Love Vegas" and Sinatra's just a little bit slower "Luck Be A Lady".

Mix up th martinis and kick back...the show will look VERY good to you!

'If you want to hear me sing serious, buy an album,' Dean says during his lighthearted stumbling through his first set. That sums up this album -- a tremendous good time, with some great music between the booze humor and in-jokes. More than any other recording, this captures the evening.

The initial set belongs to Dean Martin, probably the real heir to the Crosby style of singing, but with an attitude. The 'Drink to Me/I Love Vegas' medley is especially entertaining, with contrived lyrics set to Cole Porter's classic 'I Love Paris.' Dean had a gift for being able to laugh at himself and to ad-lib; his performance throughout the album points to his talents as a singer and wiseguy.

Sinatra's set, introduced by the 'Ring a Ding Ding' fanfare that introduced his first Reprise album a couple of years earlier, is notable in that even during an obviously light program Sinatra really delivers on some great songs. 'My Heart Stood Still' and 'I Have Dreamed' (from the Concert Sinatra album also recorded in 1963) are not casual cocktail numbers, and despite the setting these versions are superb. 'Please Be Kind' swings nicely. 'Luck Be a Lady' is raucous and excellent, although I admit to preferring the recording FS made for his 'Guys and Dolls' project around the same time.

After Sammy Davis Jr.'s 'The Lady is a Tramp', Frank and Dean use his next number, impressions on how singers other than Frank might have performed 'All the Way', as a platform for in-jokes and commentary. Politically incorrect in extreme -- with plenty of remarks about Jews, blacks and Italians -- but an artifact of the era. Also, it doesn't hurt to laugh at our differences once in a while, and Live at the Sands lets us do this. In contrast with the contrived and glossy interactions of modern sitcoms, the trio seems authentic and it works.

Frank and Dean close with another pair of songs from the 'Guys and Dolls' album, both of which lend themselves to the Copa Room atmosphere with punch and irreverence.

This is a perfect time capsule album. While not all the singing is what you might prefer on a serious album, the performances at The Sand weren't about that. Recording quality is excellent, so the gags and the stumbles all come through as though we are sitting in the front row of tables, maybe somewhere next to Lucille Ball and the other stars in attendance. If the humor was just starting to become stale and slightly offensive in 1963, it allowed us to laugh at ourselves then and now.

Obviously cashing in on Steven Soderbergh's remake of the 1968 rat-pack film Ocean's Eleven, many might see The Rat Pack Live At The Sands as yet another compilation of the `Greatest Hits' of Sinatra, Martin and Davis Jr., but we're here to tell you different. It's bigger than that; it's better than that; it's probably the best live album we've ever heard. Acting as a combination between some of the greatest jazz hits recorded, and some of the funniest comic monologues ever thought up, the album is split up into different sections for each performer, with Martin noticeably dominating the CD. Playing out similar jokes as the previous release The Summit in Concert, the difference in this is that, what the previous album lacked in music, it made up in humor, while this puts the best of both worlds into a 75-minute compilation. Opening with Dino coming on stage and straight away playing on his rumors of alcoholism by singing "Drinking to me only/That's all I aks...ask/And I will drink to you", the album then kicks in with a medley of some of his best remembered tunes, with hilarious changes in the lyrics and in-between monologues playing out as amusing anecdotes. Sinatra's contribution follows, a serious section of six tunes with ol' Blue Eyes hitting ever note perfectly, most notably on "I Only Have Eyes For You" and "Luck Be A Lady". The album proceeds to jump between drunken ramblings from Frankie and Dean, with an eight-minute medley that sounds eerily reminiscent of "Well Did You Evah?" from High Society, to Sammy Davis' straightedge performance of "The Lady Is A Tramp", and back again. But the best is saved for last, with the whole rat pack contributing at the end of the CD to some short-but-sweet repartee and tunes that will surely have you rolling on the floor. In the end, if you're looking for some great jazz hits, Live At The Sands is the not the ideal choice, but if all you want is pure entertainment (which, ironically, is what critics are calling the new Ocean's Eleven), then you can't go wrong with this recording.

"Ladies and Gentlemen - the Sands Hotel is proud to present, direct from the bar, Dean Martin!"

With this introduction begins one of the best live recorded discs to come out in years and the definitive Rat Pack CD. Captured in 1963, this disc allows the listener to sit in on one of the group's great performances at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. More than a CD, this is a time capsule of a bygone era - the golden twilight of a swingin' and much less serious time, before the assasination of JFK set the tone for what would be an extremely turbulent, troubled decade.

The "Rat Pack" was the name adopted by Frank Sinatra and his select circle of friends who performed and caroused with him in the early 1960s. While never an official title (the name was actually borrowed from a group of drinking buddies of Humphrey Bogart, which included actor David Niven, Judy Garland, Bogart's wife Lauren Bacall, and Sinatra himself, back in the Forties), the name stuck to Sinatra's gang, and nostalgia for the Rat Pack only seems to increase as time goes by.

The Rat Pack mythology was shaped during the filming of "Ocean's 11" in 1960. The five leading men - Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop - filmed during the day and then gathered onstage at the Sands Hotel at night. These "Summit Meetings" as Sinatra called them, not only galvanized Las Vegas as thousands of visitors poured into the gambling mecca without a prayer of getting a room reservation, but also made headlines and piqued imaginations as news reverberated around the world.

It was a moment in time, in history, never to be repeated."There they were," writes Bill Zehme in his liner notes to THE RAT PACK LIVE AT THE SANDS, "twice nightly, without fail, tearing it up together through the dinner show at eight and back again at midnight, primed for even greater mayhem and off-color foolery."

The audio quality of this CD is fantastic and the music and dialogue sound great. The guys are absolutely irreverant, witty, and have a great time with the audience and eachother. Stand-up, impressions, music, cocktails - everybody is having a blast, the Rat Pack included, and it comes through loud and clear on this CD. As entertainers, Frank, Deano, and Sammy are absolutely on top of their game.

There are other Rat Pack CDs out there - a lot in fact, but NONE that truly capture their very essence of what they were like this one. Listen and prepare to be taken back and find out what it was all about.

LIVE AT THE SANDS is The Rat Pack on their home turf---The Sands Hotel, Las Vegas Nevada, 1963. Frank, Dean and Sammy go to town with a collection of old standards and new numbers with a twist.

Always humorous, The Rat Pack's soooooo un-PC banter about women, drink, race, sexual orientation and religion doesn't suit the keepers of the morals nowadays (it even gets edited by Amazon.com when written into a review {...}!), but that is precisely what makes it priceless. Topical and yet still timely, The Rat Pack will shock and delight you with their "Ring-a-ding-ding," an unselfconscious world of bourbon, cocktail waitresses, cigarettes, tuxedos and smooth arrangements, all punctuated by man talk. No Clydes allowed.

Although some of this material is reprised from LIVE & SWINGIN' and other collections, the performance in LIVE AT THE SANDS has a vigor and sparkle that can only be gotten from the home-field advantage.

For anyone wishing to experience The Rat Pack at their best, LIVE AT THE SANDS is it, baby!

This is the RATPACK on the home turf Las Vegas with a nice orchestra INCLUDING strings which add especially on the ballads.

The set is tightly paced throughout and though a few jokes are dated a bit perhaps, I think they hold up well.

Sammy doesn't get to sing a whole lot and he gets picked on the most - some people may be offended and consider that racist. Just the opposite - the whole objective of those jokes was to POKE FUN and RIDICULE racism which back then was still more prevalent. How many doors were opened to black entertainers by the RAT PACK is obvious.......

But back to the show......this is probably the best set that they did together and the sound quality is AMAZING albeit a bit dry (lacking reverb) for my tastes. What was nice is that Sinatra sang a lot of songs which he had (at the time) recently recorded e.g. CALL ME IRRESPONSIBLE, PLEASE BE KIND etc. Keep in mind this was yrs before MY WAY and NEW YORK.

So put this CD on, close your eyes and let yourself be transported back into cool land!