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After hearing it, albeit in awful sound quality, one can totally understand why Frank didn't release it. And you'll notice that the channels are reversed in the previous issues. The Best is Yet to Come is also differnt, in the bridge, Frank phrases "Come the day your mine" differently. So they removed the band and isolated Frank's vocal and had Torrie Zito make a new arrangement. Overall it's excellent except for a few tunes.
To my surprise, Come Fly With Me ends with a different tag from the previous issues. Quincy cooked up an AWFUL chart that goes against Frank's tender reading of the song. What has happened is nothing short of miraculous. For some reason, all previous issues had this flaw. I have the original Quincy Jones orchestration on a privately circulated limited edition cd.
One must assume that this is the correct set up. Drinking Again is MUCH better than the original issue. Now the remastered sound. Which goes to show how important it is to have a great arranger in order to make the song work.
It's not as good as the previously issued version although the difference is slight, it's noticeable. The only track that is "over remastered" is The Girl From Ipanema. I bought this to hear the new arrangement of Body and Soul. You can hear marimbas on this remaster. The older remastering you didn't even know marimbas were used. That scratchy part of the tape on Strangers In The Night at about 1:04, is FINALLY removed. Strangers In The Night fades later than on previous issues. For some reason, this remaster is overly dry, and colder sounding.
The loud big band without strings just didn't allow for the tenderness of the song to come through. The 1998 20 bit reissue is much better. And for hard core Sinatra collectors like me, it's essential. Two alternate takes, one track with a longer ending and an unissued Body and Soul make this a must buy for Sinatra collectors. My Way sounds much better than any of the previous incarnations. But on the whole, it's a nice compilation and is a good one to recommend to people who are just getting into Frank.
This is far from Sinatra's best.It needs to be retitled "The Best of the Reprise Years"All of these recordings are from his days at Reprise, the company he started after he left Capital in the early 60s."Come Fly with Me" has it's original version by Frank on the Capital album by the same name and is much better than this rehash Frank did for Reprise.Also, many of Frank's best stuff, even if he had redone old Columbia songs due to his more mature vocal are with Capital."All the Way", "Young at Heart", "I've Got You Under My Skin", "I get a Kick out of You", "The Tender Trap", "Hey Jealous Lover", "Learnin the Blues", "Chicago", "One For My Baby", "Angel Eyes", "All of Me", "Same Old Saturday Night", "Come Dance With Me", "In the Wee Small Hours", "You Make me Feel so Young", "Autumn in New York", "I've Got the World on A string", "Love and Marriage", "Witchcraft", "Nice and Easy", "South of the Border", "High Hopes", ect.As you can see the bulk of his most popular recordings are not on Reprise although a few key signature songs are such as the classic Reprise songs, "Strangers in the Night","The Summer Wind", "It Was a Very Good Year", Theme from "New York, New York", "My Kind of Town", "Fly me to the Moon", "The Best is Yet to Come".If you really want to get the Best of Frank, splurge a little and by two pretty affordable box sets.Both were released in 1990.The Capital Years and the Reprise Collection.You will be set.
Seeing that it is REMASTERED, I have very high expectation of its sound but SAD to say, it misses that mark by a wide margin. Everything is louder, more detailed but there is no soul, the very element of music.
"Nothing But The Best," a collection of his Reprise songs, is one of those great collections that provides an opportunity to introduce "The Voice" to a new generation of listeners who know Sinatra as one of the most loved performers of the 20th century and one of the most influential musicians ever.Most of his classics are found here: "Strangers In The Night," "My Way," "New York," "My Kind of Town," "Luck Be A Lady," and many more. Nothing informs you about the impact of an artist when so many hit songs are associated with them to the extent that they are the first singer you think of when you hear the song, and for these songs, all of these are inextricably linked to Sinatra.The man may be gone, but The Voice lives on.
This Frank Sinatra CD is perfect because it's Frank. It has all of the classic Frank Sinatra songs as well as some I haven't heard much. I love listening to it while I'm cleaning.
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