Here’s To You, Old Blue Eyes: Happy 100th!

To say my musical taste is eclectic is to say leopards have spots.

I love bopping down to Harlem to listen to my favorite band, Casa Mantequilla, and my favorite singer, little brother Hawk Smith, explore Latin/Carib/African/Spanish rhythms with the brilliant Brendan Malone & Co. But my bucket list very much contains wishes to see Springsteen, Sam Smith,  Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett. And Wynne Evans in any opera. I want to see Mark Llewelyn Evans as Henry Higgins, Audra MacDonald in any darned thing she wants. I want to hear Al Vosper, Brendan Malone  and Alfie Boe play guitars together.

I’ve traveled across an ocean quite often, thank you, to see Alfie, someone I’d never heard sing a note 'til five years ago. Now I cannot imagine life without that gorgeous voice and crinkly nose smile brightening each day. And not only is there one tenor named Boe, but two, with Michael and his angelic voice at one beautiful end of the scale, and Alfie at the other, with a world of beautiful music in between, just waiting to be discovered. 

Haven’t heard of some, or any? That’s okay. It’s a play list of a most personal nature. Everyone should have such a play list, one filled with dreams come true and dreams still in the making ... Hawk singing Gershwin, Alfie singing in the Grand Canyon! Dreams, imagination, a love of music, those are all anyone should ask of his or her heart while walking down one’s own magical, musical roads.

All that said, I now set aside the rest of this salute to the one who first led me to take a step, open an ear, and open my heart -- body and soul.

Francis Albert Sinatra. Old Blue Eyes. The Chairman of the Board. The Voice. Mr. S. Or, as Jimmy Durante delightfully preferred, Da Throat.

Of the many co-contributors to the soundtrack of my life, no one can better lay claim to the original compilation than this man. Saturday, Dec. 12, 2015, would have been Frank Sinatra's 100th birthday. That means he accompanied me in the musical sense for six decades, with a wink and a ring-a-ding-ding, balancing a cocktail glass in one hand, and generation after generation’s musical GPS' in the other.

Yes, he was a ruffian, A tough Jersey boy, and darned proud of it. That pugnaciousness got him out of Hoboken and across the river to New York, which beckoned to him from across the Hudson throughout his formative years. If he could make it there, he could make it anywhere ... 

Make it there, he did. The City That Never Sleeps was the launching point from which he perfected his hold on the bobbysoxers and the brawlers who wanted to be him. 

Sinatra talked a mean game, about booze and, yes, broads; inheriting and advancing the lexicon of the original Chairman of the Board, Humphrey Bogart. 

Sinatra was hip before the word was even coined, piping red hot and blue-note cool all at once. 

Who ever pulled that off, for over 60 years?

Frankie, that’s who. He was fresh in a way the crooners he sidled up to, then lapped, were not. At the start, he was a wise guy, street-smart, able to relate to kids looking for a different path into the mid-century. In the crucial war years, his music comforted widows and loved ones on the homefront and GIs overseas. He galvanized political movements in Hollywood that championed Civil Rights. He attached to the excitement of JFK’s Camelot, further aiding a generation’s break from the tired, tried and true. 

And he stuck, through several retirements and encores, until the final curtain, in 1998.

In all, it was a mean package, a carefully-crafted brand before there was branding. And before there was the tilted fedora, the Cary Grant-worthy wardrobe, before there was the entourage and the need to create a city called Vegas in his honor, there was the sound. 

And, oh, what a sound.

I’ve always contended that if they gave Oscars for leading performances in song, Frank wouldn’t have just one Oscar, but perhaps hundreds. Because he so occupied a song, he made each interpretation an individual bravoura performance Olivier would have appreciated. 

Has there ever been a better cure for the glums than a Sinatra ballot, a saloon song?

The iconic One For My Baby, One More For The Road. I’m A Fool To Want You. Angels Eyes. Only The Lonely.

There was never a possibility that you could be as down as the poor slob in a trench coat and cockeyed brim crying in his Jack Daniels in the dead of night in a lonely dive, the pain etched into a 

face that seemed to rival the saddest basset hound. These moments were best seen and heard; thank heavens for YouTube! 

And as you watch, no matter how down you are, somehow, that Sinatra low was the kick-in-the-butt you needed to hear to get your carcass in gear. 

Was he a blues singer? He was a pop singer. But he studied at the feet of the masters, especially the royal court: The queens --  Sarah, Ella, Carmen -- The Duke, The Count. The phrasing, the cadence, the rhythm. How could the blues not seep into his music, into his pores? And when you mix in the heartbreak along the way (ah, Ava), the timbre was added and The Voice aged like fine wine.

The resulting body of work found in the ballads alone remains perhaps the greatest testament to his talent. So, Frank, while I never really drank, I’ll make an exception on your 100th. This one's for you, sir!

The ballads must always be juxtaposed with Swingin’ Sinatra, the Come Fly With Me, Ring-A-Ding-Ding, I’ve Got You Under My Skin Kid. Quincy Jones, producer for some of the greatest performers of the 20th Century, such as Michael Jackson, calls Sinatra the greatest pop singer in history. Q knows pop. And when he raised the baton on The Best Is Yet To Come, with Frankie and Count Basie and his band, he had to know there was never a more apropos title, because the best was yet to come.  

My Kind of Town. Night And Day, All Or Nothing At All. Luck Be A Lady. Witchcraft. Vegas couldn’t hope to contain all that cool; it rather chose to capitalize on it. And the party, with Dino, Sammy, Peter and Joey was on!

Personally, some of my earliest memories involve my mom and dad tuning the Hi-Fi in to Sid Mark's Friday With Frank, a forever-Philadelphia radio show staple now in its 59th year. That is but one of the many ways in which you connect me to my past, my parents.

Mom, a talent who auditioned for the great Duke Ellington, often dueted with you as Dad spun your platters. Dad would croon, too, but, being tone-deaf, he knew enough to give way to the master. He just absorbed and, dare I say, saluted, often with your drink of choice, a Jack Daniel’s!

Their late-night sessions, often fueled by that wee bit of the nectar of the gods, would awaken me and I would join them in front of that big honkin’ Hi-Fi that rivaled any 300-pound wooden dining room server. 

All The Way. In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning. I Get Along Without You Very Well. You Go To My Head.

Often I'd fall asleep again, my head nestled on my father's chest as the three of us lay on the living room floor, in front of those huge built-in speakers, the Voice washing over us with love songs and ballads and beauty.

And now, nearly two decades after your death, you continue to remain stubbornly relevant, as if to prove to all the 15-minutes-of-famers what staying power really means.

My little guys grew up with your voice in surround-sound at home, but now, as young men are immersed in hip-hop. Yet you connect me to my present and their present, because the "dawn" has arisen for their generation. Josh and Christopher -- my son and my godson -- have discovered the timeless gold in the notes, the message and in-the-moment raw passion of each heartfelt verse. 

September of My Years. This Was My Love. Cycles. I Have Dreamed. Old Man River. 

The tenderness and vulnerability found in the many layers within the ultimate tough guy has opened their eyes in magnificent ways. Frankie, you occupy a song, and they relate, because that’s what the

rappers who put their lives out there in verse do the same. Thus, the ultimate interpretation. As Alfie said, you can ask an audience inside the bubble with you. Frank gave master courses in just that. It’s a talent that garnered an Oscar for acting, and broke hearts when singing. 

They get it, as Josh (28), tells me after he being lost in the moment, time and again.

I think that’s called art. Timeless art. So, when we celebrate 150, let’s do this, again. And we’ll lift another, Mr. S. I’m riding this one out with you. We may have to do it Nice ’N Easy, but I’m all in, sir, All The Way.

Sammy Davis, Yes, You Could! Thanks For The Memories

On this day, December 8, on what would have been your 90th birthday, I would like to say "thank you" to one Sammy Davis, Jr.

Thanks, Mr. D, for the inspiration I found in your life story in "Yes I Can," my favorite book as a child. 

Thank you for matching an ideal with reality by being so charming and forthcoming in an interview in 1982. That remains the absolute highlight of my career and I cherish the experience beyond all other interviews I've done.

Lastly, thank you for sharing your many gifts and so much love with this nation while enduring the slings and arrows of being a black man in a country that didn't always love you back. You walked a harrowing path, or should I say danced along it, for decade after decade.

You made history, by integrating Miami Beach's entertainment scene, Vegas, by headlining on TV shows.

Local citizens' counsels' heads exploded, Klan klaverns threatened, TV sponsors rebelled, but you never stopped pushing forward. You integrated an industry, a mindset, with the force of your talent and willpower, all 100 pounds of nothing but astounding energy and grit, grace and humor.

How you did it I will never, ever know. Walking through the back doors of joints, through the kitchens of hotels and casinos, down back alleys rather than on red carpets. Entertaining in places where you could pull in patrons by the thousands, but not pull up on cover on a bed in a room you were barred from sleeping in, or sip from one drink in a bar or restaurant you could not patronize. The color green was appreciated; the color black was ostracized, spit upon, dehumanized. Dance and sing for us, oh, talented one, then get on to the back of the bus. With a smile.


Underneath that smile, there was a determination that made a giant out of a 90-pound flyweight. When your pending marriage ti Mae Britt was announced, the South rose up again. Even over 100 years after the Civil War, a marriage between a black man and a white woman could bring hatred to a boil, and worse. And fo
r a celebrity, the repercussions were immense. Through in politics, and the third rails were everywhere.

You, Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford and your gang (yes, Marilyn Monroe, too) were famously Kennedy Men. And because you were, The Rat Pack became a campaign issue an issue in a presidential candidate.

And you became a target. Literally. The Klan and other bigots hiding behind sheets and anonymity threatended violence. And they made it necessary, in your eyes, to prepare. You already carried guns, on the hips, holstered and at the ready --

sixshooters were part of the show as you performed flashy gun twirling tricks and quick draws you used to awe John Wayne with. You’d always dreamed of being a western movie star, of outdrawing the bad guys. Little did these real bad guys know that if they acted on their hatred, this cowboy in the white hat had real bulltes in those sixshooters, ready to protect his territory on stages from Miami to Vegas. If they attempted to drag you from, or kill you on a Miami or Vegas stage, they would have met not Big John, but Little Sam. Lord have mercy!

Your battles were many, your allies, too. Mr. S -- he was always there. He told his TV sponsors that if they wanted to walk, they could, because he was going to have you as a guest on his television show, come Hell or high water. This was no small thing in the 50s. It’s a major reason I love him as I love you.

Not all was perfection. In your book, “Yes I Can,” you described Frankie’s tears when he told how JFK’s camp asked him not to stand up for you at your wedding. You understood and stood by your friend the way he could not bring himself to do so for you.

How that must have hurt. But you persevered, time after time after time, through insult and injury, indifference and indignities. You did so because you loved what you did, and refused to be swayed from doing what you loved. The stage was your solace, where the only colors that mattered where the shadings of the footlights, the sequences, the greasepaint.

So when I think of the piddling pitfalls I must endure, and at times, when think I cannot, I often think of you, Mr. D. I think back to when I curled up while reading your story. I think back to 1982 when you flashed that smile while recounting your life, the ups, the downs, the “kicks,” and the licks. Then I look at my stuff and realize, by comparison, this ain't nothing.

I got this.

Yes I Can.