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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One More For The Road, June 17, 2001
This review is from: Sinatra and Sextet: Live in Paris (Audio CD)
If the liner notes to SINATRA IN PARIS are to be believed--and there's no reason they shouldn't be--Sinatra slapped this sextet together quickly and never rehearesed on the road. The result is a near-perfect set of sultry bar tunes, more intimate than SINATRA AT THE SANDS but still a bigger sound than SONGS FOR ONLY THE LONELY. The Voice is in primal condition, the band is loose but on target, and the material is superb mid-career Sinatra. As for the banter that everyone is so hep to denigrade...this is a Vegas performer doing a Vegas act before an uppercrust white Parisian audience in 1962. What did you expect--Jerry Seinfeld? Sinatra was what he was and, in all fairness to the COB, his white-and-black give and take with Sammy Davis Jr., which seems rather backward and cold today, was seen as a great step forward in the late 1950s, when Step'n'fetchit and the Kingfish were still pretty popular stereotypes. Don't buy it for the rift Sinatra had just ripped with the Kennedys, don't buy it for mafia rumour or supposed racial slights; buy SINATRA IN PARIS for the great, great music it contains, and the powerful Voice that bowled over the world for six decades.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best Sinatra live album, December 4, 2001
This review is from: Sinatra and Sextet: Live in Paris (Audio CD)
The title said it all. Wonderful concert of the Chairman at his best. Starting off with wonderful standards like "Imagination" and "Moonlight in Vermont", then sliding into a some faster tunes before performing, without question, the best version of "Night and Day" ever recorded. After this he equals it with a wonderful version of "One for My Baby" before giving a complete show stopper in "Ol Man River" It is impossible to listen to Frank sing "Ol Man River" without getting chills. Get the cd, it's simply perfect
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A landmark live album - one among few, June 8, 1999
This review is from: Sinatra and Sextet: Live in Paris (Audio CD)
Because the sound quality exceeds that of the 1959 Australian concert, this is an involving album that features some of Sinatra's finest moments -- and some less fine -- but it all adds up to a beautiful, honest portrait of a singer who bends notes and lyrics masterfully. "Night and Day" and "Ol' Man River" are stunning. "Imagination" is fetching, as are many others. Perhaps the most touching moment of the evening is Sinatra's performance of "One for My Baby;" he explains how he feels the song has become more and more beautiful through the years, yet nearly stumbles on several lyrics, which in a studio might be cause for a retake, but here it tells you so much more about a performer on the road that we should appreciate it for what it is. This is a great evening album, long enough to make you feel as though you were there.
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