Title: In the Wee Small Hours
Artiste: Frank Sinatra
Year: 1955
Chronological position: Ninth album
Previous experience of this artiste?: Are you fu
ckin' serious?
Genre: Vocal jazz, easy listening
My thoughts
One minute (or thereabouts in) ---- Good, great, bad, meh, still waiting or other? Great
One track in --- Great
Halfway through --- Other (starting to flag and turning in the direction of Meh)
Finished --- Good
Comments: I'm by no means a Sinatra fan but I defy anyone to refute the man oozed class when he sung. It's hard not to be drawn into his music, just lose yourself in his voice. This is apparently considered the world's first concept album, as the songs all follow a linked theme, and he pioneered something to do with new microphones to enhance his way of singing too. For an album that runs for just over forty minutes it's packed with tracks, sixteen in all. One thing I really like about these “oldie” singers is their use of backing orchestras. It's not as if they used them as a prop or to disguise a weak voice or anything, as Sinatra could sing this
acapella and be just as entrancing. But there's definitely an added dimension with the orchestra involved. Duke Ellington's famous classic “Mood indigo” gets the Sinatra treatment next, and from the titles, looking down, these all seem to be sad songs, with the possible exception of “Dancing on the ceiling”, so I wonder if it will get a little boring and predictable as it goes along? There are thirteen more tracks to go.
I like the orchestral arrangement to Hoagy Carmichael's “I get along without you very well” and there's a nice jazzy feeling to “Can't we be friends?”, slightly more uptempo than what's gone before, though only very slightly. I can see that my original worry is now beginning to manifest itself: it's getting a little boring, a little dreary. I would dare to venture that sixteen tracks was perhaps too many for one album, especially as they're all quite similar in tone. Still, it's certainly a good album, but I'm not sure I would really want to experience it a second time.
Favourite track(s): “In the wee small hours”, “Mood indigo”, “I get along without you very well”, “Last night when we were young”
Least favourite track(s): n/a
Final impression I don't deny the significance or importance of this album, or the contribution it made to music as an art form, but an album of ballads is a stretch for me to get through at the best of times, and not being a Sinatra fan, I found this pretty heavy going by about the halfway mark. There's no doubting the quality of Sinatra's singing or the greatness of the compositions. I just would have preferred something uptempo maybe to relieve the overall sense of depressing melancholia engendered by this album, at least in me. I guess that was the point, which is fair enough, but it's not for me.
Do I feel, at the end, A) I wish I had listened to this sooner
B) I'm sorry I bothered
C) I might end up liking this
D) Have to wait and see
E) Bit underwhelmed; was ok but a classic?
F) Definitely enjoyed it, but again would I consider it a classic?
G) Enjoyed this album just purely on its own merits
H) Glad I listened to it
I)Kind of not really that affected
Sort of I really...
