[Dixielandjazz] Frank Sinatra Jr. interviewed

[Robert Ringwald]

Frank Sinatra Jr. Performs Tonight in Lakeland
by Bill Rufty
Lakeland (Florida) Ledger, March 10, 2011
Don't ask Frank Sinatra Jr. for his opinion about current popular music because he
will tell you.
"So much music today is amateurs with little or no feel for what they are doing,"
he said.
Sinatra, 67, will perform with his 20-piece band in the Youkey Theatre at the Lakeland
Center today at 2:30 p.m. and again at 7:30 p.m.
His love of jazz and his candid, blunt answers about music are reminiscent of his
famous father. He doesn't pull his punches when asked about the direction of music
today.
According to his biography, at his birth his father said that he hoped Frank Jr.
would never become a singer -- "no following in Dad's footsteps, that's for sure."
And with an internationally acclaimed singer father and sister Nancy, who hit the
pop charts, Frank Jr. once described himself as the "Volkswagen in the Sinatra garage."
But he does indeed sing those songs made great by "The Chairman of the Board," as
his Dad was known, and the younger Sinatra has stepped beyond his father's footsteps,
not just performing, but teaching and chronicling that special American art form:
jazz.
His current tour began two weeks ago in Atlantic City and proceeded south with a
stop along the way at Lamar County Schools in Griffin, Ga., where Sinatra and his
group instructed students, a passion he has pursued for years.
"In the last few years, we have spent a lot of time at campuses, recently in Albany
and at Rutgers," he said. "There is interest in jazz still among students and on
campuses. I have met a few kids who have what it takes to make it if they choose
to follow on it."
Sinatra is also looked upon as a preserver of jazz and its promoter, a keeper of
the flame, as you would say.
His show today will give that big-band feel and also provide a look at later versions.
"The show is predicated on a jazz band setup and with the jazz of the 1960s and 1970s,"
he said.
And, of course, it includes a great deal of the songs made famous by his father.
"Oh yes, there is a lot of that. People expect it and it is classic," said Sinatra,
who true to the family name, is first a singer.
But the younger Sinatra is a storehouse of jazz academia and its changes through
the years, which keeps it continually viable in an age of synthetic music and current
fads.
"The big jazz band sound changed in the 1960s with Stan Kenton, who was primarily
responsible with experimenting and more flexibility in the sound. Then you had band
leaders like Doc Severinsen and Maynard Ferguson who began to branch out and follow."
Sinatra, with his personal knowledge, can easily find himself in both worlds of jazz,
which he obviously finds more meaningful and more genuine than some of today's contemporary
music.
"We are in a different age. We are now in the age of rapid mediocrity and even sub-mediocrity,"
he said. "I have been doing what I am doing for 48 years and rap, gangster rap and
everything following seems lower.
"Jazz really describes a certain feel of music. People can feel the mood and the
tempo, life," he said.
Today isn't his first performance in Lakeland. He performed at the former Holiday
Inn at I-4 during its glory days many years ago.


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
530/ 642-9551 Office
916/ 806-9551 Cell
Amateur (Ham) Radio K6YBV

My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary.
She said, "I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds."
I bought her a bathroom scale.