“A JOLLY CHRISTMAS FROM FRANK SINATRA”
(1957)
By Mahnuel Muñoz
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The American economic prosperity during the 1950s caused Christmas to become one of the highest consumption periods of the year; In 1950, Americans spent $40.2 billion on gifts, food, and decorations. By 1957 that figure had grown annually to reach 50.34 billion. Likewise, record sales had gone from 189 million in 1950 to 603 million in 1959. It is not surprising, then, that Christmas carol albums acquired notable importance in the musicians’ agendas; Among the hundred best-selling albums of the decade, no less than nine are Christmas-themed.
In the second half of the decade, Frank Sinatra enjoyed a very sweet professional moment in all the fields in which he operated. Recording a Christmas album guaranteed great success if things were done well, and on this occasion the work would not be a mere compilation of singles like its predecessor “Christmas Songs By Sinatra” from 1948; It was projected with the methodology of Frank’s conventional albums.
PRODUCTION AND RECORDING
Frank wanted to give his Christmas album a classic and sober feel, so he called on Gordon Jenkins to be in charge of the orchestrations. Jenkins provided lighter scores than usual in which he alternated strings and the voices of the Ralph Brewster Singers choir. Leading the production was, as usual, Voyle Gilmore.
Three recording sessions were scheduled on July 10, 16, and 17, 1957, in which the twelve songs that make up the work were recorded. The two sides of the album were organized thematically, leaving the first for secular themes and the second for religious pieces.
REPERTOIRE
Six of the songs on the album are new versions of the songs recorded in Columbia, so I will not recount their origin, limiting myself to commenting on the interpretations. For more information I refer you to the article dedicated to “Christmas Songs By Sinatra“.
JINGLE BELLS
This is a clear improvement over the Columbia recording. Although it still does not adopt the festive tone of other more popular versions, the performance benefits from Frank’s sophisticated and even mischievous tone, supported by Gordon Jenkins‘ fresh arrangement, based on a light string base and choir voices that open the theme musically spelling out the title, in a way reminiscent of the song “Rag Mop” by Johnny Lee Willis And His Boys (1949).
THE CHRISTMAS SONG
This song was composed by Bob Wells and Mel Tormé on a hot day in July 1945 from a small poem written by the former with the intention that the winter images would help him withstand the high temperature. In just forty-five minutes the song was written and set to music. The authors offered it to Nat “King” Cole, who premiered it in 1946 and would record it again three more times, turning it into a classic that has been performed by many of artists of all styles. To this day there are more than two thousand versions.The theme lists a series of typical prints of the time and appeals to the feelings of children and adults.
Frank completes a splendid, heartfelt and thoughtful reading. Jenkins’ orchestration alternates passages with the twilight beauty that characterizes him and others in which the choir contributes mystical tonalities that do not appear in the versions by Cole, Crosby, Perry Como or Tormé himself.
MISTLETOE AND HOLLY
This song was composed by Hank Sanicola (1914-1974) and Dok Stanford (1917-1967) along with Sinatra himself. It is an original piece that combines in its lyrics the typical endearing images of Christmas with humorous and even critical comments: “It’s time to eat too much and for affectionate greetings from relatives you don’t know.” The most carefree moment of the album.
I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
This song was composed in 1943 by Walter Kent and James “Kim” Gannon and released that same year by Bing Crosby, once again achieving great commercial success as he did previously with “White Christmas.” The piece touched the hearts of Americans, especially soldiers fighting in World War II. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” became the most requested song at Christmas shows for members of the United States Armed Forces in both Europe and the Pacific, and the military magazine “Yank” said that Crosby achieved more for military morale than anyone else of that time.
The lyrics seem like a hopeful letter to the loved one in which he asks that everything be ready to celebrate Christmas when he arrives home, but the outcome is uncertain, as it ends with the phrase “I will be home for Christmas even if it is in my dreams.”
Sinatra gives a beautiful, serene and melancholic performance, with a deep sadness that emerges in the phrase “Christmas eve will find me where the love light gleams.” The orchestral arrangement opens with the choir singing “Silent Night” and the sound of a bell, generating a powerful homely image. The voices of the choir accompany Frank throughout much of the piece, intensifying the pathos of the music, and close emotionally along with the delicate notes of a celesta.
THE CHRISTMAS WALTZ
A waltz composed in 1954 by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne at the request of Frank Sinatra, who wanted to publish a Christmas single. Its lyrics list traditional images of the holidays. The first recording dates back to that same year and was orchestrated by Nelson Riddle. It is a piece of simple and captivating beauty that has become a small standard of the genre, with almost three hundred iterations, including those by Peggy Lee (1960), Johnny Mathis (1986) and Susan Boyle (2013).
Gordon Jenkins‘ vision for this album has, as his aesthetic canons dictate, a solemn and sad tone, but that does not damage the charm of this beautiful waltz, the “sinatrero” Christmas carol par excellence.
HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS
This moving song was already recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1946, who offered a performance that is difficult to surpass. But in 1957, with the throat more loaded with experiences and the shelter of a shocking arrangement of strings and voices, the song becomes a sublime experience. In my opinion, it is the best of the four versions that Frank recorded.
THE FIRST NOEL
This carol that tells of the day Jesus Christ was born has its origins in the 15th century in its oral form, and appeared in 18th century sheets in Helston, near Cornwall.
It was first published in the revised edition of “Some Ancient Christmas Carols” (1823), edited by Davies Gilbert, although its publication in the hymnal “Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern” compiled by William Sandys in London in 1833 caused it to increase its popularity. The melody of the song also appeared in this hymnal. The first recordings date back to before 1910, and among its most famous performers are Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton.
Sinatra offers an imposing version, his singing is dedicated and serious. Gordon Jenkins‘ string and chorus arrangement has a majestic beauty.
HARK! THE HERALD ANGELS SING
It was written by Charles Wesley (1707-1788), an English Methodist leader and hymn writer. Wesley is the most prolific male composer in history, with more than 6,000 hymns to his credit. Wesley, inspired by the sound of London church bells as he walked to church, wrote the poem “Hark” to be read on Christmas Day. This poem was published in 1739. In 1753, George Whitefield, a student and eventual colleague of Wesley, adapted the poem into the song we know today, which tells of an angelic choir singing the praises of God.
In 1855, the British musician William Hayman Cummings, organist at Waltham Abbey Church, adapted the 1840 melody “Vaterland, in deinen Gauen“, from the “Gutenberg Cantata” by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847).
In the early years of the 20th century several choral groups recorded their versions of this piece, and possibly the first recording of a solo voice belonged to the Canadian tenor Henry Burr (1882-1941). Over the years it has been revised more than a thousand times.
Sinatra’s recording is exquisite; Here the voices of the singer and the choir are absolute protagonists, there are overwhelming passages in which they sound without the support of the strings and the beauty of the sound is sublime.
OR LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM
A beautiful reading, with the sober and calm tone that is required, but to my ears it fails to surpass the extraordinary previous recording from 1947.
O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL (ADESTE FIDELES)
Another update of a song released on their previous Christmas album, and in this case, with a profuse arrangement in choirs that gives it, rightly, greater majesty.
IT CAME UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR
A revision of this hymn that was already part of the predecessor album from 1948.
As in the previous theme, the choral arrangements enhance the theme and accentuate its beauty.
SILENT NIGHT
This new version of the classic is purist and elegant, both the arrangement and the singer’s interpretation are faithful to the spirit of the song, but it does not achieve the perfection of the 1945 reading.
LAUNCH
The album was put in stores on September 21, 1957. Bruce Jenkins tells in the book he wrote about his father (“Goodbye. In Search of Gordon Jenkins“) that the album was hastily prepared and released to compete with Columbia Records, that he planned to reissue “Christmas Songs By Sinatra” in a revised, expanded and renamed format. The move turned out more than well, as “A Jolly Christmas From Frank Sinatra” became one of the best-selling albums of the decade while the Columbia product, under the name “Christmas Dreaming“, went unnoticed by the general public. after its late presentation in November 1957.
REVIEW
This work is one of the most emblematic Christmas albums in history and, regardless of its seasonality, it has a perennial musical substance, since Sinatra and his team knew how to give it the quality typical of the secular albums that were released on Capitol Records, betting on a material based on popular musical culture and an orthodox treatment of it, without falling into the easy resource of forcing a “Sinatrera Christmas.” The work can satisfy those who enjoy a traditional sound and the most daring ears alike.
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