Strangers In The Night (May, 1966)  Warner Brothers 1017 [CD]

After the release of a couple of compilation albums (My Kind Of Broadway and A Man And His Music), Sinatra accomplished a remarkable feat by topping the charts in 1966 with the title song of this album (in fact, the album was rush-recorded after the song was a hit.)  But it's also a notable album for a couple of other reasons: foremost in that it was the last album that features Nelson Riddle as the sole arranger/conductor.  For whatever reasons, Sinatra never chose to use Riddle as his main collaborator, despite their remarkable track record that by now had spanned thirteen years.  However, they would work on some one-off sessions in the 1970's, and also perform together live in concert.  The second notable aspect of Strangers In The Night was that the sound is the first time that Sinatra was able to successfully fuse contemporary sounds with his own style.  Riddle does this by subtly adding organ, percussion and other "rock" elements into his own string and horn instrumentation - so the arrangements aren't a sudden shifting of styles for Sinatra, but a gentle nudge in a more modern direction.  The songs too, are better suited to Sinatra's style, with a gentle "Summer Winds" and a shimmery "On A Clear Day (You Can See Forever)" as well as the driving "Downtown" all receiving sympathetic, energized reading from Sinatra.  My favorite tracks may be the swinging "All Or Nothing At All" which Frank gives a ferocious bounce, and the uptempo "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World" which benefits from the unusual, zippy tempo.  But other tracks sound only middling in their delivery, with "You're Driving Me Crazy," and "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" sounding off-kilter in the midst of an otherwise consistant and tasteful album.

Sinatra At The Sands (August, 1966)  Warner Brothers 46947 [CD]

Without doubt, Frank Sinatra was long overdue for a live album by the time Sands came out in 1966, but what a show to document!  Quincy Jones took the podium for this special concert at the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, leaving Sinatra and Basie to simply cut loose - and they do.  Transporting the listener to Rat Pack era when Frank would be at his swingin'est, finger-snapping best, telling racially inflammatory jokes that would get him thrown out of most places today, and just hittin' each song right outta the ballpark, Frank and Basie finally click on record, and it just doesn't get any better.  Frank sounds fine, a little gruff, but that just adds to the smoke and whisky flavor of the setting.  The songs are all standards, but he sings them with joy, affection, and a comfortable familiarity that never settles into perfunctory readings.  He tackles both the uptempo (an out-of-control pace on "Get Me To The Church," and a restored-to-CD version of "Luck Be A Lady") to a surprise or two (a dark, fitting interpretation of "September Of My Years"), and allows Basie and his band to go crazy a couple of times on their own.  Also restored to the running order is an 11-minute monlogue that shows just where Sinatra was at in 1966.  Ribald, raw and oh-so-Frank, it's essential listening.  But I can't say enough good about this album.  It's the definitive concert album, with everything that makes Sinatra an icon of the Twentieth Century right here on display for everyone to hear.  Absolutely essential.

That's Life! (November, 1966)  WEA International 927039 [CD]

I'm going to step away from the pack of popular opinion on That's Life and say out loud that I like this album a lot!  The title track is one of the hardest R&B numbers Sinatra's ever tackled, with almost autobiographical lyrics ("I've been a puppet, a poet, a pauper, a pirate, a pawn and a king; I've been up and down and over and out and I know one thing: Each time I find myself flat on my face I pick myself up and get back in the race.") and it really kicks, with arranger Ernie Freeman's charts hot with trumpets and drums.  I would've loved to have Sinatra record an entire album of this kind of material, but the album reaches into other areas as well, from the treacly "Somewhere My Love (Laura's Theme)" to the bombast of "The Impossible Dream," this album shows that Sinatra was still reaching out for new ideas, and new ways to catch the audiences ear.  Unfortunately the music is pretty low-brow, with lots of mindless repetition in the lyrics, and arrangements that you might expect to hear coming from Engelbert Humperdink instead of The Chairman Of The Board.  I mean, "Winchester Cathedral?!?"  But it's still an interesting album, with Frank apparently feeling like he can do no wrong, and the unbridled power of his voice makes up for a lot (even the dreck of "I Will Wait For You.")  If you can put away your preconceptions about how Sinatra should sound, then you might find some real fun in That's Life.  Worth checking out if you're wanting something different.  Available only as an import or as part of the Complete Reprise Studio Recordings.

Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim (March, 1967)  Warner Brothers 46948 [CD]

What makes Sinatra so successful as an artist is that he was able to reinvent himself over and over again, incorporating new sounds without alienating his core audience.  For this album he teamed with Antonio Carlos Jobim, a successful singer/songwriter who had scored hits in the United States with "How Insensitive" and "The Girl From Ipanema."  For this collection, those two songs, plus four others of Jobim's, were combined with three others ("Baubles, Bangles and Beads," "Change Partners," and "I Concentrate on You") and arranged into a program of light bossa-nova, courtesy of arranger/conducter Claus Ogerman.  Jobim is present on background vocals and guitar, but this is Sinatra's album all the way, and it's a smash!  Sinatra whispers his way through the vocals in a way never fully explored before, and Ogerman's arrangments, utilizing muted brass, sensuous strings, and soft, percolating percussion all create an exotic soundscape that ebbs and flows from song to song.  The LP runs very short, less than 30 minutes, but that's a perfect time for the listener to become mesmerized by the perfectly-crafted minatures that each track becomes.  This album isn't one that reaches out and grabs the listener by the throat, or wrenches their emotions with heartbreak, but repeated listenings confirm that Sinatra has successfully transformed himself again, and this album rewards the listener who takes the time to listen and meditate with it.

The World We Knew (August, 1967)  WEA International 927043 [CD]

The only times that Sinatra really sounded like a fish out of water was when he dipped his toe into rock 'n' roll.  From the awkwardness of "From The Bottom To The Top" during his Capitol years to the mis-steps heard on That's Life Sinatra continually shows his willingness to experiment with rock stylings that repeatedly reveal how ill-suited they were to his talents.  On The World We Knew, the most blatant displays of this experimentation show up, from the inane slush of "Somethin' Stupid" (an extremely appropos title) to the over-the-top sentiments of "Born Free;" from the fuzz-guitar laced histrionics of the title track to the syrupy pap of "You Are There," this album shows that when it came to contemporary sounds, Sinatra was out of his element.  Part of the problem lies in the patchwork of arrangers who were commissioned for this project: Nancy's producer Lee Hazlewood, Billy Strange, Ernie Freeman, Don Costas, and Gordon Jenkins each bring a distinctly different sound to each track, creating nothing approaching a cohesive album.  Some tracks fare better than others: a remarkably sensitive, piano-driven "Drinking Again" is one of the best things Frank recorded during the latter half of the sixties; and the down and dirty R&B of "This Town" shows Sinatra's "bad boy" image off to good effect.  But you know something's wrong when Sinatra sleepwalks his way through the big, juicy bombast of "Some Enchanted Evening," and overall this album is a sporadically interesting mess.

Francis A. & Edward K. (January, 1968)  Warner Brothers 1024 [CD]

This highly-anticipated pairing of Sinatra and "Duke" Ellington was a bust on the charts, and listening to it, I can see why - it's a dull recording.  Ellington's band sounds muted and detached, and Frank never connects with the songs.  Although by now Frank was focusing on more pop-oriented material, there are enough good songs on here to make it work: Bobby Hebb's "Sunny," which is one of the best songs here, sung tenderly by Sinatra, and "Indian Summer" (Ellington's only tune included) is lovely; but this album should swing, and it never even gets up to running speed, much less off the ground.  It's the prototypical somnabulist sleep-walker of an album, with most everything plodding along at the pace of an dead horse.  Even a song as happy as "All I Need Is the Girl" feels dull and listless.  What's really surprising is that Billy May wrote the arrangements, and if anyone knows how to jump 'n' jive, it's him!  Urgh.  Lots of fans enjoy this album for it's "elegant" nature, but for me, I'd rather listen to something with some meat to it, be it swing or saloon songs, anything rather than this half-hearted exercise in redundancy.