Sinatra! “Ol’ Man River” : Not Exactly A Deep Cut, But Another Mini-Mystery

(Not to mention a Nelson "riddle!")

Lots of Frankophiles - many members of the “Frank Tank” - to thank on this one: Dan Levinson, David Rose, Jordan Taylor, Chuck Granata, Michael Kraus, Rob Waldman.

Two musicians brought this to my attention (coincidentally, both are reed players): Pete Anderson, who noticed it to begin with, andDan Levinson, who then did a very thorough exploration.

As we know, Sinatra has a long history with “Ol’ Man River” - I delve into this in some detail in Sinatra! The Song Is You. As Dan points out, he always sang the song, verse and chorus (along with practically everything else he ever sang), correctly.  The only time he deviated from that is in the verse to The Concert Sinatra arrangement by Nelson Riddle, recorded in February 1963.

Here’s the classic Columbia version, recorded December 3, 1944. Arranged by Axel Stordahl, this was originally released as a 12” 78 RPM single and by any standard is no less of a “concert” rendition than the 1963 Reprise version.

This is the 1946 performance from Till The Clouds Roll By - I’m including this as a “Lucky Strike Extra.” (Since it doesn’t include the verse, it’s not really part of this discussion, but still amazing to watch):

Now to quote Dan:

Nelson Riddle's arrangement of "Ol' Man River" that appears on The Concert Sinatra (1963) has Sinatra singing the wrong melody on bars 20-23 of the verse (where the lyric is "...white man boss / Show me that stream called the River Jordan / That's the ol' stream that I long to cross"). The form is ABA, and on the repeat of the A, Kern very deliberately wrote something different from what he wrote on the first A. The melody of the whole phrase is written a diatonic step up from where it's written on the first A, but Riddle's arrangement (and consequently Sinatra's vocal) has the phrase repeated the same way it appears the first time. In this case, in the key of the Riddle arrangement, the word "Show" should be an "F", but Sinatra sings an "E", and the melody is altered on three bars in total. The harmony is altered on those three bars plus the "long to cross" bar.

To be clear: it's not simply a case of Sinatra singing the wrong melody. The harmony is wrong in Riddle's arrangement, so Sinatra HAD to sing the wrong melody or it wouldn't have fit. 

Dan also transcribed the notes in question, and prepared this illustration:

Now here’s The Concert Sinatra version: 

We were talking about this because we happened to come across another performance of Sinatra singing the 1963 Nelson Riddle Concert arrangement.  This took place on October 5, 1963 at Carnegie Hall, the first of two nights of benefits for the Foundation for International Child Health.  Lena Horne performed in the first half, Sinatra in the second.  (The two were already not on friendly terms - that’s a story in itself - and notably did not sing together.  Incidentally CBS TV filmed Horne and Harold Arlen rehearsing together on “It’s A New World,” a revision of a 1954 Arlen song from A Star Is Born, on the Carnegie Stage. There’s no known footage from either of the actual concerts.) 

The audio of this concert only survives because of our great friend Bill Boggs, who attended that concert, along with his friend Jim Day, toting not a barge but a battery-powered, portable reel-to-reel tape recorder.  Sitting in the middle of the Carnegie Parquet, he surreptitiously taped about an hour’s worth of music, including two of Horne’s songs and most of Sinatra’s set.  Bill very graciously gave us permission to share this track with Slouching Towards Birdland subscribers here.  He adds, “By the way, I have no idea how I got that portable tape recorder. I must have rented it.”  We’re very glad that he did.  (Here’s also a photo of the ticket for the second of two nights, October 6, which someone made into a metal key chain.  $250 was a big ticket price in 1963! Dan also noticed, “At the very end we can hear Bill say ‘Oh, my tape recorder’ - he almost forgot it!”)

Thus far, this is the only other surviving document of Sinatra doing the full 1963 Riddle arrangement, complete with the incorrect notes in the verse.

Sinatra very memorably returned to “Ol’ Man River” in 1967, for the third - and many would say the best - of his five Man and His Music TV specials for NBC.  This time he sings the verse correctly, but without the orchestra; he’s accompanied only by pianist Bill Miller.  In fact, it’s just Miller behind him for most of the performance; the orchestra, playing the 1963 Riddle arrangement, essentially only comes in behind him on the last eight bars (the final A section).  To me, this is probably Sinatra’s greatest performance of the Kern song - I’ve always felt he was inspired here to do even better than his usual best because of the presence of Ella Fitzgerald, who (along with Antonio Carlos Jobim) was his guest on this special.

Postscript: Here’s a live concert version of “Ol’ Man River” from Tokyo in 1973 - again with mostly just Bill Miller’s piano, and the orchestra only coming in at the climax.  He gets a couple of words wrong in the verse but sings the melody correctly. I guess even an old man river is entitled to a senior moment.

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Very Special thanks to the fabulous Ms. Elizabeth Zimmer, for expert proofreading of this page, and scanning for typos, mistakes, and other assorted boo-boos!

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