Frank_ The Voice - James Kaplan [271]
35
Frank and Ava in Italy, May 1953. He knew he was back, but the world would take a while to find out. His European tour went from bad to worse. (photo credit 35.1)
Yet the rest of 1953 was to be a period of hard work and only momentary triumphs, of dazzling new artistic landscapes glimpsed teasingly, then fogged in. The day after Frank recorded “I’ve Got the World on a String,” he had another session at Capitol, with the same players as the day before, a tight jazz ensemble—reeds, brass, rhythm, no strings. Riddle was once again on the podium. This time it was his session, with his arrangements exclusively, and it went terribly wrong on the first run-through. The first number was Koehler, Barris, and Moll’s “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams.” “Sinatra was at his lead sheet—I don’t think we’d even made a take yet,” the trombonist Milt Bernhart recalled.
He was running the song over, and suddenly stopped—cold. And the band stopped. Frank said, “Give them a break.” He crooked his finger at Nelson, and they walked out of the studio. I recognized that the arrangement hadn’t gone over at all. Most of the guys began to play poker; I don’t know why, but I followed [Sinatra and Riddle], and watched them in the smaller studio, from the hallway.
Bernhart could see the singer and the arranger behind the soundproof glass, but couldn’t hear what they were saying. “Nelson was standing frozen, and Frank was doing all the talking,” Bernhart said.
His hands were moving, but he was not angry … he seemed to be telling [Riddle] something of great importance. He was gesticulating, his hands going up and down and sideways. He was describing music, and singing! When we came back, the date was over. And I was positive that I knew what Frank was telling him—it was about the arrangement! I could tell it was very busy. Too busy. There was no room for the singer. If they had taken away the singer, it would have made a great instrumental … At that point, Nelson had a lot of technique as an arranger, but he had to be told to take it easy when writing for a singer. And he was told! Frank was giving him a lesson: a lesson in writing for a singer. A lesson in writing for Frank Sinatra …
Sinatra could have dumped him. Other singers would have said, “Well, get another guy,” if they were as important as Frank Sinatra. But he didn’t. Which means that he recognized something in Nelson that a lot of people wouldn’t. Namely, that Nelson was brilliant, and he was trying too hard. He had already passed the audition. Sinatra addressed him as one craftsman to another, and with a note of gentle respect. Frank chose four new numbers, Riddle worked feverishly through the night, then they reconvened the next day, this time with a full orchestra and strings, for a rare Saturday session.
Frank and Nelson shelved “Dreams” and tried four ballads: “Anytime, Anywhere,” “My One and Only Love,” “I Can Read Between the Lines,” and, of all things, the theme to From Here to Eternity, onto which lyrics had hastily been slapped to capitalize on the film’s summer release. Sinatra was in wonderful, mature voice that Saturday, but the material was mainly unremarkable, with the mixed exception of Robert Mellin and Guy Wood’s “My One and Only Love.” It’s a beautiful melody, but Frank can’t quite find his way into the stilted lyric—and to make a song great, he always needed to live inside the words. (Oddly enough, two versions of the tune that have held up better are the glorious Johnny Hartman–John Coltrane collaboration and Chet Baker’s cracked and whispery rendition: in each of these cases, however, the singer is more instrument than interpreter.)
What’s most notable about the four tracks Sinatra and Riddle laid down is that they worked. The recordings weren’t ecstatic, but the strings supported Sinatra’s voice warmly and solidly—and never (as Stordahl’s strings always threatened) soporifically. At times Riddle’s fiddles lilted ever so slyly, giving promise of glories to come. The session was a noble effort