Pantagruel's Full Review: Come Fly with Me [Remaster] by Frank Sinatra
During his career at Capitol Records in the 1950s, Frank Sinatra alternated between albums full of dour, woe-is-me string-laden ballads and snappy, toe-tapping big band treats. That was about as extensive as the album themes were until he recorded Come Fly With Me in 1958 with Billy May as the arranger. Working with May for the first time, the two crafted an album that revolved around travel and featured songs old and new that highlighted various tourist destinations. They also chose to incorporate both aspects of Sinatra's previous hit albums. Alternating between punchy brass productions and string-heavy arrangements, Come Fly With Me is the muscial sampler of the 1950s Sinatra.
Sinatra commissioned Sammy Kahn and JimmyVanHeusen to write the title song for him. The buoyant and jaunty number clues the listener in to what will be a musical trip around the world, as does the portrait of Sinatra that graces the cover, even if it looks like a billboard for a travel agency. Against a clear blue sky, dressed in a dapper suit and wearing his trademark Fedora hat, he's taking a lady by the hand and motioning with his hitchhiker's thumb in the other as if to say, "let's go for a ride in the friendly skies."
The first stop is the "Isle of Capri." Clarinets offer a wink and a nod as Sinatra takes on the character of a lusty serviceman on his last night before shipping out. He is rebuffed by the object of his desire when he notices, in his hip lingo, that "she wore a lovely meatball on her finger."
With its march-like intro, "On the Road to Mandalay" reminds me of something out of South Pacific. It's actually based on a Rudyard Kipling poem about British soldiers stationed in colonial Burma and looking to do some carousing.
In between these snazzy numbers lie the ballads. Sinatra's phrasing on them is impeccable. The first pair take us to the northeast corner of the United States. Both "Moonlight in Vermont" and "Autumn in New York" are love letters to those locales. By contrast, the next pair of ballads that we encounter on the album are set in European venues. Perhaps because of that, "April in Paris" and "London by Night" are romantic songs for travelling lovers.
Rounding out the album, Billy May's band sound like they are having fun on the fiesta-like "Brazil" and laid-back on the mellow "Blue Hawaii."
If I have one complaint about the album, it is the sequence of the songs. Based on the subject matter, the touching ballad "Around the World" would seem more appropriate toward the end of the album instead of the song that follows the title track. Perhaps it was placed there because, like the title song, it, too, was a recent number, written as the love theme for the 1956 movie Around the World in Eighty Days.
Another track sequence is more complex. The Kahn-Van Heusen "It's Nice to Go Trav'ling," is a fitting closer to the original album. The lyrics address returning home (specifically, to New York) after an enjoyable trip overseas and appreciating the familiar comforts of home. Unfortunately, the three bonus tracks tacked on to the CD issue, "Chicago," "South of the Border," and "I Love Paris," diminish the force of the song. I like to program it as the final number on the CD, where placing it after the bonus tracks maintains the appeal of the song.
However, I don't want to short change the bonus tracks for they are all a treat, especially when sung by Sinatra. They were all originally released as singles and thus this seemed like the likeliest home for them given the album's theme. "Chicago" was featured in Sinatra's 1957 movie The Joker is Wild and was probably recorded around the same time as the other songs on Come Fly With Me. "South of the Border," a peppy number recorded in 1953, is similar in style to "Isle of Capri," right down to the married woman that is the subject of the singer's affection. The CD proper ends with ColePorter's "I Love Paris," recorded in 1960. Though it makes for two Parisian songs on the CD, this popular tourist city probably deserves it.
I would think that "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" would be a natural for this album, but Sinatra recorded that song already on A Swingin' Affair! But however you decide to program it, Come Fly With Me is a great listen.
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