Jazz for aficionados

curiousjim, glad I could get your toes tapping!

stuartk, the reason I mentioned Sinatra was because many musicians and singers have called him a genius. He lost his voice early on in his career, I think when he was in his twenties. Early Sinatra sounds much like Bing Crosby. Sinatra made up for the problems with his voice by inventing new phrasing, and it is this phrasing that other musicians refer to as his genius. I wondered if that phrasing would give him a place in the jazz world along with Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. Every New Years I am absolutely blown away that New York is still playing Sinatra's "New York, New York." He was born 110 years ago and died 27 years ago and I still hear him everywhere, as I do with Ella Fitzgerald.

I grew up listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and I don't know who else remembers Louis Prima and Keely Smith. Jazz was all around but I didn't think of it as jazz. It was just the music my parents were playing. And, of course, Sinatra was all around.

I love Keely Smith and i listened his album "spotlight on K.Smith" non stop for years...

and I don’t know who else remembers Louis Prima and Keely Smith.

If I remember correctly, Sinatra called himself a "Saloon Singer". Swung like crazy, probably a pop singer though. I found this interesting.

Frank Sinatra: Through the Lens of Jazz - JazzTimes

Frank Sinatra - Where or when (live)

acman3, thanks for finding that article. That's what I was talking about when I said other musicians regard him highly. On the level of Billie Holiday! High praise.

mahgister, on the topic of Persian singers I have a story. I was a pretty wild young guy at 21. My girlfriend and I had $300 and two charter tickets to London. From London we hitched through Europe, mostly took trains through Turkey, but in Iran, people wanted to pick us up to speak English. Plus my girlfriend was beautfiul.

We were theoretically going to India, but were running out of money. We hit the last town in Iran before Aghanistan. Very religious. One guy pulled a knife on us simply for being infidels. We had a local who was showing us around and he took us into a club, I guess you'd call it. And I was floored because the Iranians at the border were so religious, but on stage was a woman singer, and she had one of the most soulful voices I've ever heard.

I'm listening to the Belgian musician Toots Thielemans, the preeminent jazz harmonica player. "The Soul of Toots Thielemans" if you want to stream it for a taste.