Frank Sinatra. The last concert.
By Mahnuel Muñoz
On February 25, 1995, Frank Sinatra took the stage at the Marriott Hotel in Palm Springs to give a brief private concert before his small audience of just over a thousand lucky people, as part of the celebration of the golf tournament that bore the singer’s name. The recital went down in history for being the last offered by The Voice and, luckily, it remained a visual and sound testimony for posterity, although an official edition was never made – and probably never will be made -.
Frank offers, with the logical decline caused by age and health problems, an energetic and emotional show, without ballads, in which he recovers several classics from the 1950s and 1960s with an enviable drive, typical of a much younger performer. Sinatra hits all the notes he sets out to do and executes sustainably within the reach of few. The orchestra wants to live up to it and plays with overwhelming warmth and power.
After “My Kind Of Town” the concert had to end, and our man complains; he doesn’t want to finish. At that time there were many problems that hindered his existence, but music dissolved them completely. Happiness is palpable in every syllable that leaves his aging lips. The encore of the recital was, symbolically, “The Best Is Yet To Come“; Although Frank would not perform again – except for a brief intervention during his 80th birthday gala – his path towards eternity reached the point of no return.
1995, the year of his eightieth birthday, would see the arrival of numerous tributes and record releases that kept Sinatra’s name in the forefront of today’s news, and in some way set the tone for a careful and constant preservation and vindication of his artistic legacy that comes to this day
