by Mike Telin
“The fact that Frank Sinatra would be 109 years old this year and people are still showing up to hear his music speaks volumes,” singer, pianist, and songwriter Tony DeSare said during a recent telephone conversation. “And this show is so beautiful and so classic, it’s become something that I love to share with audiences.”
On Sunday August 25 at 7:00 pm, DeSare will bring his show Sinatra and Beyond to Blossom Music Center. Joined by the Blossom Band, DeSare will perform iconic Sinatra songs including “Come Fly with Me,” “Night and Day,” “New York, New York,” and “My Way.” Tickets are available online.
When DeSare discovered Sinatra’s music as a teenager, he became an instant fan. “I’ve always loved his music and with this show I wanted to celebrate it in a way that wasn’t as a Sinatra impersonator. I wanted to stay true to his taste and his phrasing — what people liked about him when they saw him perform and heard his music.”
In addition to classic Sinatra charts and different arrangements of songs he recorded, Sinatra and Beyond also includes a few original tunes by DeSare. “I wanted it to have energy and spontaneity while remaining true to the songs, and give people a real experience of the joy that music brings. And the show in Cleveland is with a big band, so people can kind of think of it as if they were going to Las Vegas in the 1950s to hear the Count Basie Big Band with Frank Sinatra.”
When asked if he had a favorite song, DeSare said that picking only one is nearly impossible, given that his 1,500 recordings of songs come in many different shades. He noted the bright technicolor tunes like “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and “You Make Me Feel So Young.” And then there are the songs with a film noir tinge like “Angel Eyes,” “One For My Baby, and “Only The Lonely.”
“It’s funny because one of my favorites is a not-well-known song called ‘I’m Gonna Live Till I Die.’ I love doing it in the show because it exemplifies the way Sinatra lived his life to the fullest.
What made Sinatra such a great singer? DeSare said, “He had a beautiful instrument. His voice has this kind of electric buzz that sounds great on a vinyl record. But if it was just a pretty voice, that wouldn’t have been enough. The thing that I think makes him timeless is the way he was able to interpret a song.”
He noted that Perry Como and Andy Williams may have had better-sounding, more flexible voices, but Sinatra had a way of interpreting his songs that evoked emotion in a way that no one else could match.
And what made Ol’ Blue Eyes such a great entertainer? “First of all he could perform these songs live just as well as he did in the studio. And he had this charisma, this magnetism. Although he wasn’t a particularly good storyteller or that good of a comedian, he knew how to put a show together. He knew how to take an audience on a journey and make everybody feel he was singing this to them.”
Bringing our conversation to a close, DeSare said even if you don’t know a lot about Frank Sinatra or think that his music might not be for you, you should still think about going to the show.
“The thing I’ve learned by singing this music is that the art that Sinatra made throughout his career, especially at his peak in the 1950s and into the early 60s, is timeless. It’s like Beethoven or Mozart — great artists that only grow in appreciation over time. I love it when people will come up and say, ‘My wife brought me and I thought this was going to be a grandpa show, but it was one of the best I’ve ever seen.’ So my goal is to be super entertaining and celebrate an artist who was probably the greatest pop music icon of the 20th century. He’s certainly up there with Elvis, The Beatles, and Michael Jackson.”
Photo by Vincent Soyez
Published on ClevelandClassical.com August 21, 2024
Click here for a printable copy of this article
