The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings [Original recording remastered]

Frank Sinatra, Count Basie | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 6, 2011)
• Original Release Date: 2011
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Concord Records
• ASIN: B005CAAX78
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,702 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Pennies From Heaven

2. Please Be Kind

3. [Love Is] The Tender Trap

4. Looking At The World Thru Rose Colored Glasses

5. My Kind Of Girl

6. I Only Have Eyes For You

7. Nice Work If You Can Get It

8. Learnin' The Blues

9. I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter

10. I Won't Dance

11. Fly Me To The Moon [In Other Words]

12. I Wish You Love

13. I Believe In You

14. More [Theme from Mondo Cane]

15. I Can't Stop Loving You

16. Hello, Dolly!

17. I Wanna Be Around

18. The Best Is Yet To Come

19. The Good Life

20. Wives And Lovers

Editorial Reviews

Could you imagine a more swinging combination? This once-in-a-lifetime pairing actually happened twice in the studio, and this CD unites both Reprise LPs: Please Be Kind; Hello, Dolly!; The Good Life; I Wish You Love; Fly Me to the Moon; I Won't Dance; Wives and Lovers; I Wanna Be Around; Learnin' the Blues; The Best Is Yet to Come , and more!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Sinatra At His Best September 7, 2011

By Sinatra Man

Format:Audio CD

With every Sinatra album in my collection, I can definitely say these two recording sessions represent the very best of Sinatra's voice. You'd have to listen to Sinatra At The Sands, with the Basie Orchestra and Quincy Jones arrangements to rival this collection. When the Sinatra/Ellington album came out, I had hope it would be a sentinal event. Unfortunately, the song selection was a huge dissapointment and was nowhere near a reflection of Sinatra's caliber of talent.

What makes this collection great is not only his voice, but the arrangements. I can't think of another album that accentuated his persona of that era. His voice was stronger, had a deeper range and was more commanding than the Capital years. He was well past those "only the lonely" years and was full of vigor in the early 60's. Frank was at the top of his game then, with the Rat Pack, the movies, Vegas and Reprise in full swing. I can't imagine any serious Sinatra fan not having this in their collection.

51 of 59 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars The Music is Fantastic, But What is the Point? September 10, 2011

By Douglas J. Richardson

Format:Audio CD

Make no mistake, this is absolutely essential music. There was no one like Frank Sinatra, and no one like Count Basie, and the best tracks on this CD rank as some of the greatest music ever recorded.

Yet what was or is the point of this release? The two studio albums as of this writing are currently in print around the world, though you would probably save a few bucks with this disc. Concord and Frank Sinatra Enterprises offer no special extras for loyal Sinatra fans, and the audio quality is average.

So for longtime Sinatra fans, skip this one, as you're just wasting your money. But if you're new to Sinatra and Basie, by all means grab it, and you'll find what we've been talking about!

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars 97% perfection September 10, 2011

By liliales

Format:Audio CD

This disc is nearly perfect, and a must-have, if you want digital quality of some Sinatra's best work. I have these albums on vinyl, but am glad for this opportunity. 19 of the songs are just like heaven. Track 15, "I Can't Stop Loving You," doesn't quite fit with the overall style, but it works better on here than it did on the shorter original album, It Might As Well Be Swing, and the orchestration is fine.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely worth getting... October 26, 2011

By Steve Cox

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

Don't be mislead, this compilation is worth getting -- in my opinion even if you have the original two Reprise studio albums.

"Frank Sinatra - Count Basie: The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings" is a remastered compilation of two of the most interesting Sinatra records in his vast catalog -- "Sinatra-Basie: An Historic Musical First" and "It Might as Well Be Swing" are artfully rendered into a single 20 track masterpiece that pays tribute to the too brief and truly historic union of Frank out in front of Count Basie and his amazing band.

Remastering these recordings was a bit worrisome to me because they were laid down so well in the original Reprise album releases. After spending several hours listening to and comparing this new release with the original albums, I need not have worried -- the folks at Concord, BluWave Audio and the sundry engineers involved in this effort absolutely nailed it!

A Masterful Remaster...

One of the principle areas I focus on when reviewing a digital remastered album is ... "can I discern a quality difference". In other words, can you actually hear and appreciate the end product of the remastering effort. I mean, what's the point of remastering if you can't hear a noticeable quality benefit. The team that took on Sinatra and Basie's best were truly masterful.

Frank...

There is a subtle, noticeable and beneficial "rounding" of Frank's vocals. To be clear, the original recordings are in no way deficient -- in fact they are excellent -- but Frank's entries, exits and tonal quality on this edition experiences a definite depth of field enhancement. Again, it is subtle but Sinatra's amazing vocal stylings on these classic Basie Band recordings sound deep and round without ANY dissociative effects.... There is no sense that the vocals have been over enhanced or "punched up" in a way ... no notion that they stand apart from the music. The vocal/music integration remains beautifully interlaced.

Basie...

The audio engineering Jedi mastering really hits home with Basie's music. Like the vocals, the original albums were laid down really well, so making improvements must have been a challenge, but the engineers rose to that challenge and hit the music tracks out of the park. The original sound stage (instrument positioning) was excellent but gets even more positional clarity with enhancements to virtually every instrument in Basie's band. Maybe the biggest positive impact is with Basie's piano which now arrives naturally clear and more forward by just the right amount. Additional big benefits are heard in the sax, the bass and the flute ... the entries and exits on the sax are clear, round and beautiful and you can damn near hear the bassist fingers on the strings. The songs with that lilting flute ... wow. All natural and crisp in the mid tones and absolutely no mud on the low end.

Conclusion...

The bottom line is "Sinatra & Basie's The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings" album is definitely worth snaring -- even if you already own the full Sinatra-Basie collection. The discernible quality difference translates into an enhanced listening experience that I think is well worth the asking price. (Check out my full review on the Vocalstandards site) Read more ›

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential music, but try for the original 2 albums instead of this ill-conceived hybrid September 21, 2011

By Samuel Chell HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio CD

Sinatra released only 3 albums with Basie during his lifetime, and usually the most admired and best-remembered of the 3 is the last one, a live session from the Sands, which is not part of this "studio" collection. As for these two studio dates, the first one--"Sinatra-Basie"--is, imo, the more substantive (the cover is the same as that used for the present collection). It opens with a Neal Hefti arrangement of "Pennies from Heaven," taken at a jaunty clip that's practically at polar opposites to Bing Crosby's version from more than 2 decades' previous. Ole Blue does a sort of "vocalese" chorus the 2nd time around, fitting the words to a revised melody (a la Sarah Vaughan). It's a killer track, and Sinatra would reprise the arrangement for the rest of his career. There are also unexpected delights and surprises in the repertory along with more scintillating Hefti arrangements: "Please Be Kind" (the original has one stretch of distracting, overly-wet sound courtesy of some misguided engineer), "Looking at the World Through Rose-Colored Glasses," "I Won't Dance."

The 2nd studio session (originally, "It Might As well Be Swing") has some inferior fare (e.g. "Hello, Dolly!", "I Can't Stop Loving You" mixed with a few winners (e.g. "Fly Me to the Moon," "The Good Life"). The arrangements, all by Quincy Jones, are competent mainstream swing charts "enhanced" by a gratuitous full-sized string session--not especially memorable or uniquely Basie-ish--but they're all fail-safe charts tailor-made for the elevation that only an authentic jazz swingster like Sinatra can bring to them. Admittedly, Sinatra may be in slightly better voice on the 2nd session, exhibiting more confident yet daring phrasing on this sequel session. He certainly leaves no doubt about his credentials as a "jazz singer...." Simply put, Frank could swing harder than Buddy Rich, whom he preferred NOT to work with after the Dorsey days). One caveat (or asset, as you choose): on both the first studio album with Basie and the live album from the Sands (not included here) his voice is admittedly a tad rough (these were clearly recorded during the height of his "rat-pack" days, with no assurances that he got all of the necessary rest and took his vitamins before the sessions).

Since the first album is what made me a life-long admirer of Sinatra the musician, I can't fault it because of the rougher edge in Sinatra's voice. In fact, previous to this one I had only one Sinatra album in my collection--"The Voice," from his Columbia days, when there was no question that he had one of the most beautiful voices ever heard in popular singing. Yet the public generally ignores his Columbia period (hundreds of his recordings--some bel canto and others operatic--are in the Columbia 1940s catalog) in favor of his later Capitol, then Reprise periods.

It's worth noting that perhaps Basie's outstanding soloist (at least since Lester Young), Eddie Lockjaw Davis, was not with the band for either of these two sessions. The more non-descript tenor of Eric Dixon gets most of the solos. For the later Sands date, on the other hand, Jaws is in the sax section and heard to good advantage. I'm glad I have the 3 Basie sessions that were issued during Frank's lifetime on separate CDs. These days the big record companies are unwilling to spend much on jazz and "classic" American popular music, instead piecing it out, cutting and pasting, and coming up with all sorts of repackaging that can only do the actual circumstances of the original recordings harm. Both of the sessions are from Frank's 3rd and final period, following the termination of his contract with Capitol and starting with his own label on Reprise.

It would have made more sense to have expanded this single volume to two discs with the title: "Musical Royalty: The Chair Meets the Count and the Duke," which would have permitted inclusion of the 3rd Basie session plus the only session Frank made with Duke Ellington. But what do I know? In any case, listeners definitely should know that since Sinatra's passing all sorts of material featuring him live, in concert, backed by the Count Basie orchestra, has come to light. One striking example is the box set, "Sinatra-Vegas," which features the Master Storyteller in rare form on 4 previously unpublished recordings of Sinatra in concert from the early '60s to the early '80s plus a video performance on DVD.

[Addendum: regarding the earlier comment on drummers, Sinatra usually insisted on Irv Cottler for that critical position, but on the Basie dates, the drummer is Sonny Payne, who was once quoted as saying: "Sinatra's the only singer who could make me swing." Nuff said.] Read more ›