The goosebumps begin from the get-go with a brief warmup and vamp by the Basie band accompanied by the (undubbed) off-mic announcer, and then Frank appears, proclaiming: "The cowboy is here!" Overall, these performances are looser and more dangerous than the familiar at the Sands versions and a fascinating counterpart to the more polished master takes.
CD Three fast-forwards us to Caesar's Palace in 1982, capturing Old Blue Eyes in fine voice during his underappreciated post-"retirement" early-80s phase, accompanied by Vinnie Falcone and a stellar band. Jazz combo versions of "Night and Day," "I Can't Get Started," and "I Get a Kick Out Of You" are especially enjoyable, making you wish he'd explored this format more often.
As an added bonus, Dean Martin stops by for some foolishness, and daughter Nancy even takes the stage to join Frank for a duet performance of "Somethin' Stupid" - and he murders the tune so completely it becomes almost listenable for a change.
The fourth CD presents The Man at The Golden Nugget in 1987 during the twilight of his performing career - rough around the edges but still a mighty force to be reckoned with. This set is of similar vintage to the Capitol Sinatra Live From Las Vegas CD released last year, but features superior sound quality and a better set list. He has a lot of fun with "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" and "Mack the Knife," plumbs the depths of "I Get Along Without You Very Well" and digs into the brilliant ballad medley of "The Gal That Got Away / It Never Entered My Mind."
As far as I'm concerned, the DVD should be the Holy Grail of Sinatra: Vegas. It claims to be the fabled "complete unreleased" May 5, 1978 Caesar's Palace concert performed in front of an audience of liquor salesmen, celebrities, and a Catholic priest, as recorded by CBS but never broadcast in its entirety. Sinatra predicts that "this will be shown in 1982" during his introductory remarks... and he was only off by about 25 years.
Bootleg audio and video copies of this performance have been circulating among collectors for years, and it's notorious not only because of the high quality and wide variety of music performed but also for the jaw-droppingly outrageous, hilarious, and sometimes downright cringe-inducing monologues — even by Frank's standards.
Article comments
1 - Connie Phillips
Congrats! This article has been forwarded to the Advance.net websites.
2 - Stephen V Funk
A little more background on the DVD edits and Nancy's response... on the SinatraFamily.com online forum, a link to Will Friedwald's New York Sun review of Sinatra: Vegas is posted, which includes the following comments about the DVD:
"Sinatra [...] refers to [Mayor] Bradley as being "colored" - an aside that is mysteriously deleted from the DVD. I can't imagine why it's okay for Sinatra to poke fun at Jews and his fellow Italians, but not at blacks, especially since he literally kvells with delight that both Bradley and his wife are in the audience, and is obviously jazzed that Los Angeles now has a black mayor. He literally seems to be taking this fact as a personal point of pride. The producers also snipped out Sinatra's attacks on William Randolph Hearst and Louis B. Mayer, as well as a scathing Andrew Dice Clay-like appraisal of Elizabeth Taylor's reproductive organs. On the unedited tape, Sinatra declaims, it turns out correctly: "I'm layin' 11 to one that you don't use this on television!""
Later in the same thread, a SinatraFamily forum reader posts this comment: "I find it interesting that Will points out the "sanitizing" of the DVD with Frank's less than PC comments eliminated. No one else has mentioned that."
To which Nancy replies: "Because it isn't true. WF didn't look or listen. But that's not unusual for him." Quite a slam on Will Friedwald... Nancy then apparently read the review more closely and posted:
"<< The producers also snipped out Sinatra's attacks on William Randolph Hearst and Louis B. Mayer, >> That is absolutely not true."
Interestingly she does not deny that Sinatra's remarks about Liz Taylor and Mayor Bradley were edited out (and they definitely were!) As far as I can tell, though, she is correct in saying that the rest of the monologue has been left intact. I'm not sure why Will Friedwald thinks the W.R. Hearst and L.B. Mayer comments were edited -- they are clearly included on the DVD. Maybe he has a different bootleg copy than the rest of us...