Lost Sinatra Arrangements Discovered
“Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements” by Seth MacFarlane
When Frank Sinatra died in 1998, he bequeathed his entire library of 1,200 music scores to his son who died in 2016. Those scores then went to his daughter Tina. She discovered over 100 of them were never recorded or even finished. Arrangements by Nelson Riddle, Billy May and Don Costa were left sitting in boxes untouched and unheard. Until now.
Enter longtime Sinatra fanatic Seth MacFarlane, yes, the actor-animator-writer-producer-director-comedian responsible for The Naked Gun, Family Guy and American Dad. Dude also sings. Tina reached out to him and he assiduously dove into the archives to pick 12 never-before-heard arrangements all written for Sinatra. So, for his ninth album, he went into Skywalker Studios in Marin County, California with a British string orchestra, plus members of his working big-band, and made them come to life for the new Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements.
MacFarlane told Gary Fukushima in Downbeat magazine, “there’s been nothing before or since in popular music that has really ascended to that level, as far as instrumentation is concerned. The complexity, the richness, the artistry, the high musicality. I wish there was more of that in popular music today.”
“Lush Life” was written by Billy Strayhorn [1915-1967] for Duke Ellington in 1936. Notable covers of the song were recorded by Sammy Davis, Jr. (1961], Stan Getz [1972], Donna Summer [1982], Rickie Lee Jones [1983], Natalie Cole [1991], Queen Latifah [2004] and Lady Gaga [2014]. But when Sinatra tried it, its tricky rhythmic structure and melodic complexity bamboozled him so he shelved it.