SINATRA: Boss of the Bossa Nova:
 Frank introduces Antonio Carlos Jobim, a leader in the developmnt of a marvellous rhytmic beat called the Bossa Nova. Although subtle and restrained, this musical device has a compelling, insistent pulse that one cannot resist tapping one's fingers or feet to the song. Two of the songs. Quiet Nights and The Gal from Ipanema are originals by Jobim demonstrating its origins in the Samba traditio in Brazilian music. However, two standards, one by Irving Berlin, "Change Partners" and Cole Porters' "I concentrate on You" show how the Bossa Nova can be used to give new life to ballads written more than 70 years ago. These sings need to be whispered not shouted and are an effective antidote to the loud and insensitive nature of much of todays' music clamour.

 https://youtu.be/-crvYbXBf5A

Nina Simone sings " You don't know what love is" ( until you've learned the meaning of the Blues) This heart-rending torch song ws written, strangely enough ,for a 1941 Abott and Costelo Fim. NOTE: They did not sing it to each other but was sung by a femle in the story.
Nina Simone captures the anguish expressed in both the words and music which song scholar Alec Wilder believed was written out of a personal conviction and wrote that" This is gloom in the raw, not the fake melodrama the commercial boys turn out."  

 https://youtu.be/BguiWbW5j3Q

"  I Cover the Waterfront"  This is a wonderful piano solo of Johnny Green's song, Lyrics by Edward Heyman. A film with the same title used this as main theme. Here it is played by Lara Downes, someone ,with whom I have established a friendship. There is a rhapsodic quality to her interpretation of the song that has a quality harkening back to the piano creations of Sergei Rachmaninoff. I never tire of hearing this virtuoso performance by Lara.

 https://youtu.be/LEmn_un7b28

Sinatra at his finest. I get along without you very well demonstrates Frank Sinatra stripped of all the Vegas, wise-crack brashness , He sings with ultra dramatic sincerity and convinces us that he lives in and believes the words in this Hoagy Carmichael song. No changing of lyrics to insert " cuckoo" or "chicks"  " broads"or the other course vulgarities he often inserts in live performances .Instead,you are hearing a consummate singing actor living the words and music in a most convincing manner . This is a sublime musical performance. It also has a wonderful Nelson Riddle string arrangement with a violin near the conclusion in  aduetwith the singer.

 https://youtu.be/QcRZ2i_C6zo

"' America the Beautiful"  This is a wonderful patriotic song written in 1919. The words are by Katherine Lee Bates and the music by organist Samuel Ward . Since there is so much discussion about " Making America Great "again, this music should stir genuine patriotic blood. I first heard this cornet and organ version played by Ruby Braff on his piercing clarion and eloquent horn. He was accompanied by noted keyboard artist and song scholar Dick Hyman . I was absulutely thrilled the first time I heard the song thirty years ago. But have never lost that same  tingle in my spine as the cornet hits the high notes and the organ swells in support. Although  I am a Canadian, I was educated in the USA at Michigan State University and retain a great affection for America. I hope that it can regain the prominence so wonderfully expressed in those uplifting words describing the USA and " America The Beautiful"

 https://youtu.be/Uot1HrVHG_8

Sinatra/; 2 distinct versions of Night & Day.  The 1957version, arrangement by Nelson Riddle is a relentlessy swinging Big Band version emphasizing the elation experienced by Sinatra, a great singing actor. It is positive. energetic and most convincing of the singers devotion to the peron about whom he singsall Night & Day. The arrangement does ot feature the verse or introductory segement to to the main chorus.
In vivid contrast is the 1972 version arranged by Don Costa. The verse  beginning with " Like the beat,beat, beat of the like the drip,drip.drip of the rinfalls, like the tick.tock tick of the stately clock" creates a musical tension from the repeating notes and words. The verse does set the mood for what follows is a symphonic approach unlike the Big Band version of 1957. Here, Sinatra is more reflective, no less engrossed in thinking about that special person than he expressed in he Riddle arrangement. But, now he is more reverential and less exclamatory.
I believe that this verse, like any verse in popular song, can really seduce the listener by setting a mood, with music and words, for what's to follow. See which version you prefer.

https://youtu.be/qn_cfbK9M14 

https://youtu.be/mGGirB4XOmI 

'  "You've Been a good old wagon but you've done broke Down"  This is a 1895 early blues of Ben Harney. Although it is really about a womens lament about diminishing male capability, I choose to adopt it for anyone who has orthopaedic problems with hips and/or knees. Myself, 2 hips and one knee replacement and this old wgon hqs done broke down. I may need replacements for my earlier limb replacements but this old wagon has now officially done broke down.
Dinah Washington, a great blues singer, sings with energy and sadness at the diminiushed capacity of her man. I post it as a direct statement of my own decreased mobility. Maybe, after twenty years, the inplant has run its course.


https://youtu.be/OxnHIBEvZ8U

Hit the road to dreamland    bouncy Arlen song with very hip lyrics by Johnny Mercer  like " Dig you in the lsnd of nod"  look at that knocked out moon"  "  The rooster has finally crowed,  Time to Hit The Raod."

Bing Crosby and Trudy Erwin swing this little diity on a radio broadcast. 

https://youtu.be/Z8Q8ZjPivuo

Love Thene from " the Bad and the Beautiful"  Composer David Raksin wrote the famous song " Laura." Both Irving Berlin and Cole Porter admitted that Laura was the one song they wish that they had written.
For the " Bad and the Beautiful" Raksin wrote a " siren song" that is quite complex in the use of extraordinaarily lush chords which jazz players like Bill Evans like to explore. Evans plays solo piano of the theme plus Michael Feinstein sings the lyrics which I thought were written by Dory Previn. This is a melody of the very highest attainment in popular song.

 https://youtu.be/BgERf0KqX9Q

https://youtu.be/7Gdxw0xSs3o 

Frank Sinatra asks " Where is the One ?" The song probes the issue of anyone wnting to make a permanent life connectiop with that one-and-only one. Written by Alec Wilder, noted song scholar, composer& arranger whose magnum opus is " American Populasr Song: The Great Innovators: 1900-1950." He studied over 17,000 songs to assess what is good and why  providing criteria he felt would characterize th best in American popular song.


 https://youtu.be/KpsT6uHVgoI

Sinatra and Ella sing "  Moonlight in Vermont: Written in 1944 by Suessdorf & Blackburn, it features two singers who have done more than any other singers to highlight the glories of the Great American Songbook . The melody is very graceful and most singeable.
Of note is the fact that there is not a single rhyme throughout the song. Most unusual for a pop song but the absence of rhyming is not missed at all.


https://youtu.be/cyyRi3l7E_k

DICK Haymes sings " If there is someone lovelier than you", a song that does not enshrine physical beauty but inner aspects of character and humanity. Composed by Arthur Schwartz with lyrics by Howard Dietz. DIETZ, like Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Ira Gershwin and E.Y Harburg were the poets of Tin Pan Alley who all attended Columbia University in the 1920's. 
A wonderful tribute to the best of what we all love about women.

https://youtu.be/BhpjMyV-h0w