“Sinatra and Me” — a true jazz story by Paul Brophy

October 3rd, 2020

.

.

photo by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress

photo by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress

Frank Sinatra, Liederkrantz Hall, New York, N.Y., ca. 1947

 

.

___

.

Sinatra and Me

by Paul Brophy

.

…..Frank Sinatra floated through the air in my boyhood home and Philadelphia neighborhood.  My mother and two of her older sisters, Henrietta and Marge, had seen young Frankie in person at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier in the late 1930s, the thrill that wed these young Italian-Americans to Frank for life. “It’s Always You” reached them.   He was part of our Staffieri family — their fantasy husband.

…..When I was growing up Frank could be spotted and heard around the neighborhood.  The framed Holy Trinity hung in Larry Cosetti’s living room: John F. Kennedy, Pope Pius XII, and Francis Albert Sinatra, with the Pope in the center, just a bit higher than the other two.  (Kennedy and Sinatra were saints, yet they didn’t represent Christ on earth).  The Seeburg jukebox in Aunt Marge’s luncheonette was half full of Sinatra 45s, including his novelty songs like “River Stay Away from My Door”, and “Ol’ MacDonald.”  And he was in the jukebox at Lou’s pizza shop, where we sat around Formica tables after the Friday night 8th grade dances, a musical shift from the more juvenile songs we had rocked to earlier in the evening — songs like “Lloyd Price’s “Personality” and Dion and the Belmonts’ “A Teenager in Love,’ the teen version of the bumpy road of love. “Why must I be a teenager in love?”1

…..Mom hummed and sang Sinatra while vacuuming and washing clothes in the wringer washer and then hanging them in the backyard to dry.   She stirred her special spaghetti sauce with him in the kitchen. He taught her that days go too slowly “Without a Song.”  “I only know, there ain’t no love at all, without a song.”2

…..When I was eight and my brother Richie was four, we memorized and perfected “Love and Marriage,” earning broad smiles from Uncle Jim and Aunt Betty and just about everyone else who wandered into our row house.  We sang, “Dad was told by Mother, you can’t have one, you can’t have none, you can’t have one without the other,”3 without understanding, of course, that “none” was a double entendre.

…..As I inhaled the Sinatra air around me a voice deep inside urged:  “The girls swoon over Sinatra, so be like Sinatra, and maybe the girls will swoon over you.”

…..Our connection deepened every Friday night in the 1960s as I listened to Friday with Frank on WHAT, a jazz and blues station, while delivering pizzas in my family’s 1956 Chevy from that same pizza shop with the Sinatra in the Wurlitzer jukebox.  Friday nights meant handling 40 or 50 orders, as Sid Mark, a DJ who knew Frank personally and seemed to know everything about him, spun popular and obscure Sinatra. It was three hours of pizza and Sinatra, mixed with inside stories and handcrafted commercials for Italian grocery stores and restaurants in South Philly.   Some of those songs, like “Come Fly with Me” and “High Hopes,” kept me running and hoping for broader horizons.

…..With Frank as my consort, I fell in love with Love delivering those pizzas.

…..Ah, the highs of falling in love. Like that night at St. Joes dance when the 17-year old me spotted a knockout from South Philly in a polka dot dress and, instead of going to my usual corner to get up the nerve to ask her to dance, I walked right up, asked her, and was in heaven.  Barbara was tall, pretty, and magnetic. “In my frightened arms, polka dots and moonbeams sparkled on a pug-nosed dream.”4 Love was “All the Way”.  It was “Witchcraft.”

…..And the lows. That stormy night I heard Frank sing Burke and Van Heusen’s “Here’s that Rainy Day” I  had to pull over to the curb.  It was just after Barbara turned me down a third time for a date, and I gave up asking. Or, Rogers’ and Hart’s “It Never Entered My Mind.” “You have what I lack myself; now I even have to scratch my back myself.” 5 

.

.….(Interlude 1:  I pause here to beg patience from the reader who is not in love with Sinatra, and who conjures up Frank as an old-school womanizer who shouldn’t even be spoken of today let alone listened to. His swinging version of “Ol’ MacDonald” captures the guy-gal culture of his times. “  . . . With a little curve here and a little curve there, this Chick she had curves everywhere.”6 He had four wives, one of whom was half his age. [My mother had trouble forgiving him for Mia Farrow, but she eventually got around to it.]  Then there were his affairs and one-night stands, which while they didn’t trouble my aunts shocked me when I read about them in my mother’s Photoplay magazines. No argument with any of that. I just can’t Cancel Frank.)

.

…..He and I moped on the serene moonlit Avalon beach most nights in New Jersey the summer of 1966.  We ceaselessly hummed and sang “Mood Indigo,” the melody and words echoing and feeding my dark and deep-as-the ocean loneliness.  None of the girls I wanted, wanted me back.  I was miserable; and, for better and worse, I was beginning to taste the sweet side of self-pity.

…..Being in love with Love meant Sinatra had to help me face this heartache.

…..Frank can reach the depths of loneliness. He may be the best ever at it. There are albums entirely of heartbreak songs—All Alone, (1962) No One Cares, (1959) Sings for Only the Lonely, (1958). They’ve been my cocktails through every breakup and love fight in my adult life: a melancholy Sinatra, a few whiskeys, and tears.

…..How to make a woman swoon?  The plot thickens here because I received completely opposite messages in my youth.  There was the Sinatra approach: “Something’s Gotta Give,”“All I Need is the Girl,” and his public behavior, countered by the persistent message from the nuns and priests who taught me in the Catholic schools that Frank wasn’t kidding when he sang “Love and Marriage.”  You get any before you’re married and you suffer the eternal pain of hell. Swooning without canoodling?  As impossible as walking the beach without sand between your toes.

…..I wasn’t handsome and debonair like Frank.  I was a gawky.  And I sure didn’t dress like Frank.  Hell, I only learned that stripes and plaids didn’t go together when I was 17 and my crush Rosemary Logan asked me why I had both on my body at the same time.

…..“The shirt and the pants both have red and blue in them,” I offered, pointing out the matching colors.

…..“No, Paul, it doesn’t work that way”.

…..Ugh.  Who taught Frank how to dress? Frank was an Italian kid from Hoboken.  I was an Italian-Irish kid from Philadelphia. Why couldn’t I be like more like him?

…..A decade later I admired Woody Allen’s portrayal of this feeling of ineptness in Play it Again Sam, his nerdy character coached by an imaginary Humphrey Bogart on how to win a girl’s heart.  “Tell her you’ve met lots of dames, but you are really something special.”  It worked for Woody.

…..But not for me.  Sinatra’s songs and Bogart’s style didn’t win for a pimply teen with stripes and solids.

.

…..(Interlude 2: You may be thinking: it’s bad enough he’s focused on Sinatra.  Now this guy is citing Woody Allen, who is in deeper shit than Frank for his reputed sexual behavior.  I hear you and I support the #MeToo culture; but I try to be forgiving of, or avoid focusing on, personal foibles, and sins. The artistry is what’s essential to me. Stay just a bit longer, please, I’m almost done.)

.

…..I bumbled through those years, finally finding love, losing it, and finding it again. I’m now 35-plus years into my second marriage.

…..Sinatra’s indispensable album for me in my senior years is September of My Years, filled with mellow reflective songs, looking back with some regrets, some fond memories, and some elder wisdom.  “How Old Am I?,” “The Man in the Looking Glass,” and “This is All I Ask.” “How old am I? Old enough to know the difference between infatuation and the love that has a chance to grow.” 7

…..The British music critic Ian Penman says that in his last concerts, Sinatra “ . . . was speaking to everyone in the audience who’d grown up with that voice and grown old with that face, and forgiven their owner’s many trespasses. He’d been their fall guy and idol, political bellwether and stand-in Las Vegas libertine. They’d played his records on first dates and then later at wakes for army buddies and others gone too soon. No one else’s voice seemed to play just so on so many different occasions.”

…..The song that plays through my entire life–my top song of the thousand or so that he recorded–is “Young At Heart,” conveying the Sinatra wisdom that seeped into me in my boyhood, and was my mother’s favorite.

…..I led my friends in singing it at my 70th birthday party:

 

Fairy tales can come true
it can happen to you if you’re young at heart
for it’s hard, you will find
to be narrow of mind if you’re young at heart.8

 

…..(Oh, you’re still with me? Go ahead and listen to it. You just might enjoy the message.)

 

Thanks for the Memories, Frank.

.

.

___

.

 

 

.

 

 

Paul Brophy’s love for Sinatra songs is the base for his lifelong affection for the composers and lyricists of the Great American Songbook as interpreted by the jazz singers and musicians of his generation.  His playlists, including “Sinatra and Me,” can be found on Spotify by clicking here

He still eats pizza and listens to Frank on Friday nights.

.

.

.

Listen to Frank Sinatra’s 1981 recording of Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin’s “Thanks For the Memory”

.

.

1 Music and lyrics by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman

2 Music and lyrics by Vincent Youmans, Billy Rose and Edward Eliscu

3 Music and lyrics by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen

4 Music and lyrics by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke

5 Music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart

6 Lyrics by Marilyn Bergman, Spence Lewis (Lew),  and Alan Bergman

7 Music and lyrics by Gordon Jenkins

8 Music and lyrics by Johnny Richards and Carolyn Leigh

.

.

.

Share this:

Comment on this article:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Site Archive

In This Issue

painting of Clifford Brown by Paul Lovering
A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Spring/Summer, 2024 Edition...In this, the 17th major collection of jazz poetry published on Jerry Jazz Musician, 50 poets from all over the world again demonstrate the ongoing influence the music and its associated culture has on their creative lives.

(featuring the art of Paul Lovering)

Interview

Interview with James Kaplan, author of 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lost Empire of Cool...The esteemed writer tells a vibrant story about the jazz world before, during, and after the 1959 recording of Kind of Blue, and how the album’s three genius musicians came together, played together, and grew together (and often apart) throughout the experience.

Publisher’s Notes

photo by Rhonda Dorsett
On turning 70, and contemplating the future of Jerry Jazz Musician...

The Sunday Poem

“menage a trois ” by debora Ewing...

Click here to read previous editions of The Sunday Poem

Essay

“Gone Guy: Jazz’s Unsung Dodo Marmarosa,” by Michael Zimecki...The writer remembers the late jazz musician Michael “Dodo” Marmarosa, awarded Esquire Magazine’s New Star Award in 1947, and who critics predicted would dominate the jazz scene for the next 30 years.

Feature

Excerpts from David Rife’s Jazz Fiction: Take Two – Vol. 5: “Scott Joplin: King of Ragtime”...A substantial number of novels and stories with jazz music as a component of the story have been published over the years, and the scholar David J. Rife has written short essay/reviews of them. In this fifth edition of excerpts from his book, Rife writes of three novels that include stories about Scott Joplin, the primary forerunner and significant influencer of jazz.

Interview

Interview with Larry Tye, author of The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America...The author talks about his book, an intensely researched, spirited, and beautifully told story – and an important reminder that Armstrong, Ellington, and Basie all defied and overcame racial boundaries “by opening America’s eyes and souls to the magnificence of their music.”

Short Fiction

Impulse! Records and ABC/Dunhill Records. Photographer uncredited/via Wikimedia Commons
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #66 — “Not From Around Here” by Jeff Dingler...The author’s award-winning story is about a Jewish kid coming of age in Alabama and discovering his identity through music, in particular the interstellar sound of Sun Ra..

Click here to read more short fiction published on Jerry Jazz Musician

Poetry

John Coltrane, by Martel Chapman
Four poets, four poems…on John Coltrane

Feature

What we discover about Kamala Harris from an armful of record albums...Like her or not, readers of this site will enjoy learning that Vice President Kamala Harris is a fan of jazz music. Witness this recent clip (via Youtube) of her emerging from a record shop…

Playlist

photo of Teddy Wilson by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress
“Trios – Three’s Not a Crowd” – a playlist by Bob Hecht...In the history of jazz there have been many variations of instrumentation within the trio format (think of Benny Goodman’s trio or Jimmy Giuffre’s) but on this playlist, Bob Hecht concentrates on a handful of the classic trio configurations—either piano, bass and drums, or in a few instances, piano, guitar and bass...

Poetry

“Revival” © Kent Ambler.
If You Want to Go to Heaven, Follow a Songbird – Mary K O’Melveny’s album of poetry and music...While consuming Mary K O’Melveny’s remarkable work in this digital album of poetry, readings and music, readers will discover that she is moved by the mastery of legendary musicians, the wings of a monarch butterfly, the climate and political crisis, the mysteries of space exploration, and by the freedom of jazz music that can lead to what she calls “the magic of the unknown.” (with art by Kent Ambler)

Book Excerpt

A book excerpt from Designed for Success: Better Living and Self-Improvement with Midcentury Instructional Records, by Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder...In this excerpt, the authors write extensively about music instruction and appreciation records dealing with the subject of jazz.

Interview

The Marvelettes/via Wikimedia Commons
Interview with Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz, authors of But Will You Love Me Tomorrow?: An Oral History of the 60’s Girl Groups...Little is known of the lives and challenges many of the young Black women who made up the Girl Groups of the ‘60’s faced while performing during an era rife with racism, sexism, and music industry corruption. The authors discuss their book’s mission to provide the artists an opportunity to voice their experiences so crucial to the evolution of popular music.

Short Fiction

MartyRus, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
“Briscola” – a short story by Emily Xu...The story – a short-listed entry in the recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest – is an exaggerated version of the dynamism of domestic/romantic relationships between spouses and the difficulty to sustain a family.

Art

photo of Leroy Jenkins by Giovanni Piesco
The Photographs of Giovanni Piesco: Leroy Jenkins...photos of the eminent free jazz violinist, taken at Amsterdam's Bimhuis on January 4, 1999.

Essay

“Like a Girl Saying Yes: The Sound of Bix” – an essay by Malcolm McCollum...The first time Benny Goodman heard Bix Beiderbecke play cornet, he wondered, “My God, what planet, what galaxy, did this guy come from?” What was it about this musician that captivated and astonished so many for so long – and still does?

Trading Fours with Douglas Cole

Trading Fours, with Douglas Cole, No. 21: “The Blue Truth”...In this edition, the poet riffs on Oliver Nelson’s classic 1961 album The Blues and the Abstract Truth as if a conversation between conductor and players were caught on tape along with the inner monologue of some mystery player/speaker of the poem.

In Memoriam

Hans Bernhard (Schnobby), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
“Remembering Joe Pass: Versatile Jazz Guitar Virtuoso” – by Kenneth Parsons...On the 30th anniversary of the guitarist Joe Pass’ death, Kenneth Parsons reminds readers of his brilliant career

Book Excerpt

Book excerpt from Jazz with a Beat: Small Group Swing 1940 – 1960, by Tad Richards

Click here to read more book excerpts published on Jerry Jazz Musician

Jazz History Quiz #175

photo by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress
This famed jazz artist played the piano professionally as a seventh grader before switching to drums, learning to play in the styles of Chick Webb and Sid Catlett. Before forming his own band in the early 1950’s, he played with Mary Lou Williams (pictured) in New York, toured the South with Fletcher Henderson’s band, and was the drummer in Billy Eckstine’s group from 1944 – 1947. Who is he?

Community

photo via Picryl.com
“Community Bookshelf” is a twice-yearly space where writers who have been published on Jerry Jazz Musician can share news about their recently authored books and/or recordings. This edition includes information about books published within the last six months or so (March – September, 2024)

Contributing Writers

Click the image to view the writers, poets and artists whose work has been published on Jerry Jazz Musician, and find links to their work

Coming Soon

An interview with Larry Tye, author of The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America; an interview with Jonathon Grasse, author of Jazz Revolutionary: The Life & Music of Eric Dolphy; A new collection of jazz poetry; a collection of jazz haiku; a new Jazz History Quiz; short fiction; poetry; photography; interviews; playlists; and lots more in the works...

Interview Archive

Ella Fitzgerald/IISG, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Click to view the complete 25-year archive of Jerry Jazz Musician interviews, including those recently published with Judith Tick on Ella Fitzgerald (pictured),; Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz on the Girl Groups of the 60's; Tad Richards on Small Group Swing; Stephanie Stein Crease on Chick Webb; Brent Hayes Edwards on Henry Threadgill; Richard Koloda on Albert Ayler; Glenn Mott on Stanley Crouch; Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom on Eubie Blake; Richard Brent Turner on jazz and Islam; Alyn Shipton on the art of jazz; Shawn Levy on the original queens of standup comedy; Travis Atria on the expatriate trumpeter Arthur Briggs; Kitt Shapiro on her life with her mother, Eartha Kitt; Will Friedwald on Nat King Cole; Wayne Enstice on the drummer Dottie Dodgion; the drummer Joe La Barbera on Bill Evans; Philip Clark on Dave Brubeck; Nicholas Buccola on James Baldwin and William F. Buckley; Ricky Riccardi on Louis Armstrong; Dan Morgenstern and Christian Sands on Erroll Garner; Maria Golia on Ornette Coleman.