Sinatra’s piano gets hammered
mainA Steinway bought by Frank Sinatra in 1949 sold at auction this week for $106,000, over twice the upper estimate.
Could he play? On this movie clip he is dubbed.
Here, too, you see no hands.
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A piano owned by Frank Sinatra, who took the charm out of 1920’s & 30’s music in 1950’s, will always be valued much higher than a piano owned by a true piano virtuoso.
He was a singer, an actor, and an entertainer, not a piano player. He could sing a pop tune better than Horowitz, I presume.
Those of us who actually know what we’re talking about revere Sinatra as one of the greatest song stylists to have ever recorded.
He drew much of his styling from recordings of the great belcanto artists. His breath control is immaculate. His understanding of language and line extraordinary. His art is of the highest distinction.
He took old, trite songs and revitalized them thanks to great singing with brilliant arrangements that he helped shape, and many of these otherwise forgotten songs are now true bstandards as a result.
I think he was a brilliant artist but some of those old songs u refer to are by people like Cole Porter and I don’t think those songs became standards just because of his interpretations but because they were genius in their own right and would stand the test of time and any fads of the times because of their quality
Mustafa….
I don’t know you, but with all due respect, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Hear Sinatra sing “Where Is Love” or “I’m a Fool to Want You” or “Dindi” or “Bonita” or “EbbTide”.
Yes, there’s charm there, in spades – but there’s also longing and oftentimes despair.
Put on your listening ears, my friend.
Wow way to disregard his talent and gift to take good music and make it relevant to a new generation. I think the music is a stand alone, but I also recognize the gift he had for phrasing and interpretation. Just because you don’t like his style is no reason to ignore the gifts he had
A piano owned by anyone famous, musician or not, will have much greater perceptional value than it’s intrinsic value. If you told a a die hard Cary Grant fan that he owned this particular piano, the fan would pay double than what’s it’s worth easy.
… the winning bidder took an All or Nothing at All approach to the auction.
Sinatra didn’t need to play piano when he had Bill Miller playing for him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Miller_(pianist)