CBS Showcases an All-Star Salute to Frank Sinatra at 100
It’s always a risk to have Frank Sinatra’s music sung by someone other than Frank, but fragmentary indications suggest that Sunday night’s "Sinatra 100: An All-Star Grammy Salute" on CBS (9-11 p.m. ET) should remind us why he earned this kind of celebration.
If the whole show isn’t ring-a-ding-ding, that’s okay. It keeps music alive that we need to keep alive.
Sinatra, who died in 1998, would have turned 100 on Dec. 12, and that has triggered a modest flurry of commemoration. This show may be the most ambitious, featuring artists like Alicia Keys, John Legend, Carrie Underwood, Seth MacFarlane, Usher and Tony Bennett performing songs that Sinatra, in many cases, defined.
The show was taped just Wednesday night in Las Vegas, which is why CBS couldn’t provide a full preview screener before airtime. The network sent out a handful of clips, though, and they show a lavish production with full orchestration.
That’s appropriate for Sinatra, whose shows were elegant and stylish.
The preview clips also suggest that the show will acknowledge the range of Sinatra’s musical moods. Usher (right) seems to be having a lot of fun with “That’s Life,” while MacFarlane gets quiet and reflective on “One for My Baby.”
Celine Dion, of course, seems to be singing “All the Way” as if it’s the last song anyone will ever sing anywhere.
The producers have done a good job of covering the essential Sinatra tunes, though that list is so long that even including two medleys doesn’t get everything in. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” is missing, which is too bad, and so is “My Way,” which is fine.
The roster of artists tilts young, which has both an upside and a downside.
Only Bennett and Harry Connick Jr. represent the older musical guard, folks with personal links to the some part of the Sinatra generation.
The lineup doesn’t even include Bob Dylan, who recently released an album of Sinatra songs. Instead it runs more toward Adam Levine, Sam Smith, Lady Gaga (below) and Katharine McPhee, with some country thrown in from Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks.
It’s a group in which everyone has contemporary name recognition, which makes promotional sense when you’re putting together a national television production.
It’s too bad, though, that there wasn’t room for some of today’s rich roster of lesser-known, but splendid cabaret singers, old and young. Since they work from a songbook closer to Sinatra’s, they might bring more dimension to some of his songs.
On the other hand, it’s heartening that so many younger pop artists were apparently eager to join a shoutout to an artist of an earlier generation who sang quite a different style of music.
That probably speaks in part to Sinatra’s stylistic influence. More than that, you’d like to think, it speaks to the durability of the music he created, and helps explain why these songs aren’t just something your grandparents once enjoyed.
If that message gets across, then ring-a-ding-ding.