IT MIGHT AS WELL BE SWING
By Mahnuel Muñoz
On June 9, 1964, in the midst of Beatlemania, Frank Sinatra forms a joyous triumvirate with Count Basie and Quincy Jones to put together an album titled “It Might As Well Be Swing“, a collection of fiery melodies and vitalist messages: a warning to long-haired navigators that old jazz musicians don’t throw in the towel just like that.
The work is the second in the trilogy recorded with Count Basie. Quincy Jones, who at that time was a young jazz prodigy, contributes a string section to the arrangements that provides a refined character in contrast to the urban and casual sound characteristic of the Basie orchestra.
The album is warm and elegant, drenched in high-octane jazz and comprised of charming repertoire, more relaxed and contemporary than its 1962 predecessor, “Sinatra-Basie: An Historic Musical First“; In addition to two perennials from Frank’s live repertoire (“Fly Me to the Moon” and “The Best Is Yet To Come“), he deploys superb versions of “Hello, Dolly“, “More” and “I Can’t Stop Loving “You“
On August 22, 1964, it reached the Billboard charts and reached thirteenth place in the ranking, remaining on the charts for thirty-one weeks.
“Fly Me To The Moon” is a beautiful song written by Bart Howard in 1958 and which had many versions before Sinatra’s; There is no doubt that our man’s was a before and after… in fact it was the song chosen by the astronauts who traveled to the moon in 1969. Buzz Aldrin, in a conversation with Quincy Jones, claimed to have taken a song with him on anportable record player on which he played a record with this song.
“The Best Is Yet To Come” is the classic par excellence of Cy Coleman, along with his staff partner Carolyn Leigh.
Frank was not the first to sing it, but the giant Tony Bennett who introduced it to the world. But Sinatra had the ability to make almost every song that passed through his mysterious bowels his own and for history it has remained as another anthem of The Voice, immortalized in a difficult time in which many things disappeared from the old world that saw younh Frankie grow and triumph. It is a fans’ favorite and an injection of positive energy, almost a mini-self-help manual for moments of existential limp.
Frank used this song until the last of his concerts, it was in fact the last complete song he sang on stage, irrefutable proof of the value it had for him, even beyond the musical motifs.
Not in vain, of the hundreds of songs he recorded in his sixty-year career, the phrase that accompanied him for years on his tombstone was “The Best is Yet to Come” (recently changed to “Sleep Warm, poppa” ).
The union of Frank Sinatra and Count Basie is, indisputably, one of the most glorious tandems in the history of music. With two studio albums and one live album, they left a lasting and influential mark with an exquisite repertoire executed with the mastery that only the gods of the pentagram display.
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