Frankie's shining hour

Didn't feel much like baseball last night -- which to those who know me well should tell you something. Got home from work just before 8 and surfed away from the Braves game to Turner Classic Movies in time to catch one of my favorites, the 1953 Columbia classic, "From Here to Eternity."

It's probably most famous for the then-provocative scene on the beach between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, but at its core, "Eternity" is Frank Sinatra's film. He's a supporting player, not the name above the titles, but he so dominates the role of Pvt. Angelo Maggio that he's noticeably missed when he isn't on screen.

File this one under Exhibit A for making the case that Sinatra, without question really, was the greatest entertainer of the American century.

I'll dispense with the usual plot summary other than to say this film focuses on the men that make up an army unit in Hawaii during the days leading up to the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. It's a guy movie, full of the rhymes and rhythms of military life, but it has a little romance and all the other stuff filmmakers used to think they needed to tell a story.

Lancaster is his usual terrific self. Kerr is mighty fetching as his illicit lover. My favorite woman in the film, however, is Donna Reed, who I will insist to my grave was one of the most beautiful women of her day. More importantly, she was a darn fine actor.

But this is Sinatra's picture. You can almost feel that Maggio was a character he was born to play -- the scrappy Italian who ain't takin' nothin' off nobody -- ripped straight from his own sense of who he was as a man and a performer.

Frankie was down on his luck when this movie premiered. He'd been released from his longtime recording contract with Columbia. His records weren't selling anymore. His tumultuous marriage to Ava Gardner had ended, too -- with Frankie holding the bag -- and the pieces of his broken heart.

He needed a comeback. Maggio was it.

From here, Sinatra made another fine little film ("Suddenly," in 1954) and bounced back on the music scene in a big way, making magic for Capitol Records during his long association with arranger Nelson Riddle. (Those Sinatra/Riddle albums of the '50s, by the way, are essentials for anyone who claims to love American popular music.)

After the film ended, I popped in some of Sinatra's early big band work with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, and thought awhile about what being an entertainer used to mean. Elvis may be the king, Ellington may be the Duke, but Sinatra really is the Chairman of the Board.

If you doubt me, watch "From Here to Eternity" and "Suddenly" back-to-back, then take a listen to the "Wee Small Hours" LP.

It's not even close, folks.

The weekend goeth

So it's Sunday night and the weekend is closing down with ease.

The Colts and Titans are tied, the Crimson Tide seems to be having its way with Colorado and I've got Nat "King" Cole on the rad-io, a Christmas present I'm just now enjoying on the hi-fi.

It's one of his original Capitol albums from the fifties, "Songs for Two in Love" or something like that. I'm too lazy to go look. Nat is smooth as silk. You know what I mean.

The liner notes say that Collector's Choice is going to be releasing all of King's Capitol albums, some appearing on compact disc for the first time in the United States. These are classics, essential additions to any collection that claims to know something about American popular music.

The arrangements fit snugly in Nelson Riddle's more than capable hands. Nat had no equal on vocals. He's better than Sinatra, really. But don't tell anybody I said that.

Here he is singing Johnny Mercer better than anyone before or since.

The falling leaves pass by my window...

God, why doesn't anybody sing like this anymore?

I was lazy on this rainy Sunday. Spent the afternoon watching football with a pal in Maryville. It was nice and easy, a good Sunday for a nap.

Now, I guess it's time to start the week, although we'll get one last holiday respite before having to wrestle with 2008 with any kind of seriousness.

Geez. I'll be 30 this year. Where on earth does the time go?

Get your kicks...

I have this crazy dream.

I play it over in my head sometimes, just before the sun comes up in the mornings and I have to begin the day. I pick a direction -- it doesn't matter where -- and fill the tank up with gas. I drive around the country, stopping whenever the mood strikes, and write about the people and places I find.

If I could figure out how to get paid doing all that, I'd leave tomorrow.

Went to Best Buy tonight after dinner with the gang. Imagine my delight when I came across the first volume of the first season of "Route 66," a 1960s television series that centers around my exact scenario -- two buddies driving around the country (in a spiffy 1960 Corvette convertible, no less!).

Only difference is my traveling companion is usually some attractive brunette instead of George Maharis. But I digress.

I have only seen a handful of episodes of this classic CBS series up till now. The old Nick and Nite aired the show for a year or two around the time we purchased cable television in the mid-1980s. But I was six or seven then, couldn't appreciate the show, hadn't yet fallen in love with the open road.

"Route 66" was a unique reverse anthology series. Pals Buz Murdoch (George Maharis) and Tod Stiles (Martin Milner) would wander into a new town each week. All they had between them was Tod's Corvette, a gift from his late father.

Tod was wealthy until his dad passed away. Buz was from New York's Hell's Kitchen. Both were broke, seeking adventure, and -- per the cliche -- trying to "find themselves." Famous guest stars would show up each week and the two friends would get caught up in their stories.

What made "Route 66" unique was that the series was actually filmed on location at the various stops featured in each episode. This was before America became homogenized, with a McDonald's and Pilot gas station sitting near each interstate offramp. Heck, this was before interstates. Folks didn't travel much then and "Route 66" exposed viewers to much of the American highways and byways for the first time.

No, that famous Manhattan Transfer hit ("Get your kicks on Route 66") wasn't used as the show's theme. CBS was too cheap to buy the rights. So arranger Nelson Riddle wrote a catchy tune that became a popular song in its own right.

The DVD set is a bit of a disappointment. It's clear, pardon the pun, that these dark prints with scratchy audio haven't been digitally remastered. They don't look near as good, for example, as the recent release of another '60s TV classic, "The Fugitive."

But it's just so good to see this show resurface that I'll keep that criticism to a minimum.

Now if I could just figure out a way to hit the road myself.

"Route 66 Season 1, Volume 1" is now available on DVD.

Coming on easy...

So it's just after supper and I feel like hell.

I'm blaming this cold. Won't go away. Head feels heavier than a Mack truck.

So I curl up in the easy chair and flip on the TV. Don't much care for the old movie on Turner. Flip it over to XM radio. Oh, good. Here's Jonathan Schwartz.

Sinatra is dreaming that same old dream. Then comes Dinah Washington. Now that woman had some pipes. I can't remember the song. Head still hurts.

Music is therapeutic, me thinks. Makes you forget the world awhile. Almost warms away the cold.

Almost.

It's difficult to get away from the Chairman of the Board, once you've heard a touch of that voice, and Nelson Riddle, and the lost art of it all. That cat could swing. Ring a ding ding.

So it's good-bye XM and a quick jaunt over to the CD player. "Songs for Young Lovers."

Well, wait a minute. Here's Torme. Damn that Schwartz.

OK, don't like the song. On to the turntable.

I've about decided this is my favorite Sinatra album. His musical biographer Will Friedwald favors "Songs for Swinging Lovers!", I suspect mainly for "I've Got You Under My Skin."

But, think of how it must have been, way back in '53, to chuck crap like "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?" for The Voice, now with a deeper baritone, sporting that snazzy hat, warming the night with his funny valentine.

Stay, little valentine stay, Each day is valentine's day...

When I'm not in the mood for the romantic stuff, I switch to the later Reprise discs. Torch songs.

Look at me, I'm drinkin' again...

I still think nobody beats Frankie on that overrated Sondheim tune from "A Little Night Music."

Don't you love farce? My fault, I fear...

Somebody, maybe it was arranger Gordon Jenkins, says you hear Sinatra utter that one word -- farce -- and your life flashes before you, and you think of all those silly love affairs, and the gals that got away, and the one that broke your heart, and... well, you get the idea. It's difficult to argue. Been there.

Then I get tired of the whole darn thing and need a little Skynyrd.

What can I say? You can take Jake out of Halls, but you can't take Halls out of Jake...

Either way, it's coming on easy tonight. I've nearly forgotten the headache.