Frank Sinatra: Sinatra Sings Cole Porter

It is odd to hear, through the periscope of so many decades, the Chairman of the Board sound youthful and playful as a colt, like barely more than a choirboy. The spry and sparkle of the material certainly helps. The arrangements, including charts by enduring Sinatra associate Billy May, are as clever as Porter’s lyrics – sometimes, perhaps, a bit too clever, as when Sinatra complains “There’s too many words” as he gallops through “Don’t Fence Me In.”

At this time, Sinatra was a genuine pop idol, as the swooning and squealing young girls who respond to “I Love You” and “I Get A Kick Out of You” will attest. Small wonder: his elocution is picture-perfect in the first, textbook reading of “Night and Day,” and he strolls coolly through the one bluesy change of pace (and the least orchestrated piece, piano trio plus clarinet), “Why Can’t You Behave?” Though not yet with the personalized style he would develop two decades later, this reading of “I Concentrate on You” does foreshadow the liquid, samba version on Francis Albert Sinatra / Antonio Carlos Jobim.

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