Frank Sinatra

GIFT GUIDE 2009

Box Sets

• AC/DC

  Backtracks

  BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

• Alan Lomax in Haiti

  Alan Lomax in Haiti

  BY THOMAS FAWCETT

• Fire In My Bones: Raw, Rare, and Other-Worldly African-American Gospel 1944-2007

  Fire in My Bones: Raw, Rare, and Other-Worldly African-American Gospel 1944-2007

  BY AUDRA SCHROEDER

• John Coltrane

  Side Steps

  BY JAY TRACHTENBERG

• Woody Guthrie

  My Dusty Road

  BY DOUG FREEMAN

• Dolly Parton

  Dolly

  BY MARGARET MOSER

• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

  The Live Anthology

  BY JIM CALIGIURI

• Where the Action Is!: Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968

  Where the Action Is!: Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968

  BY AUSTIN POWELL

• The Doors

  Live in New York

  BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

• Frank Sinatra

  New York

  BY GREG BEETS

• Rod Stewart

  The Rod Stewart Sessions 1971-1998

  BY MARGARET MOSER

• Woodstock 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur's Farm

  Woodstock 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur's Farm

  BY JIM CALIGIURI

• Gary Moore

  Essential Montreux

  BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

• Jane's Addiction

  A Cabinet of Curiosities

  BY AUSTIN POWELL

• Boxing 2009

Frank Sinatra

Much like 2006's Sinatra: Vegas box, this 4-CD/1-DVD set attempts to encapsulate Ol' Blue Eyes' musical relationship with the City That Doesn't Sleep through a decades-spanning series of live recordings. The first mistake is not starting until 1955. Sinatra's nut-making stint with Tommy Dorsey's band is reduced to an after-the-fact walk-on that's both slapdash and poorly recorded. Better Sinatra/Dorsey radio transcriptions exist, but not in Reprise's vaults. From there we jump to a 1963 performance at the United Nations building with original Tonight Show bandleader Skitch Henderson on piano. Interesting as a historical footnote, Sinatra's voice is uneven, most noticeably at the climax of "I Have Dreamed." The U.N.'s acoustics don't help. The lion's share of New York is consumed by two 1974 shows that could have easily boiled down to one. With Hank Aaron and Watergate as a backdrop, both shows suffer under the weight of TV-awards-show-style orchestration that tries too hard. When he's not championing Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns" as the antidote to "acid rock," Sinatra vainly attempts to keep it current by covering Bread's "If" and Jim Croce's "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" not once, but twice. Subsequent 1984 and 1990 performances swing harder and stay focused on the Great American Songbook. Despite down-market camerawork, the DVD of a 1980 Carnegie Hall show finds Sinatra belting out "Theme From New York, New York" for the hometown crowd like it's still a new toy. Nice, but not nearly enough to solidify this top-dollar set's primary conceit.