play it like frank.

I've almost always been into Sinatra.

It started very young, watching Anchors Aweigh countless times as a young kid (though I'm a Gene Kelly gal all the way, sigh), and also other musicals I'd watched and rewatched . It intensified with a foray into jazz (safe-jazz, as I like to call the earlier stuff) at a music camp over the summer, 6th grade?, where Steph and I played in a jazz band as an elective to the core music classes/ensembles.  We had a fiery instructor with a bit of a wonky eye, and he'd just snap 'play it like Frank!' all the time, which didn't have a ton of meaning to the youngsters more concerned with the faction of awkward boy trombone players.  Steph and I, years later, got to see 'Come Fly Away', the full-length Tharp set purely to Sinatra, soon before it closed in NYC.  We are very lucky to have caught it, I think it was so beautiful for just enjoyable/easy to watch (but not simple) dance... Anyways, not in the mood to go on and on, but between music, movies and notoriety, I've always been intrigued.

So, I think because I am reading this (it's REALLY well-written- if anyone wants to borrow) and my allotted recreational brain think-space is therefore currently fascinated by all things life-of-Frank, I did a short combo to some Sinatra tonight. It wasn't really difficult or elaborate, but instead it was just fun and let me toe the line somewhere in the vast greyspace between mod/contemp and jazz/musical theatre.  I didn't even get to the good parts and it felt goooooooood.  So good that I took the long way home, shuffling through the Sinatra selection on my iPod quite loud, with the car windows open, scaring the homeless people scattered along my route.

I rediscovered this guy, forgetting how much I love the song.  I think it's the 'don't you know, you fool' line that does it, I embarrassingly and yet consistently wish I could jump back in time to be serenaded with it... the whole mentality/reality use is fun.

Singers in the past used to really sing their song to you, instead of just the 'i'm checked out and singing through auto-tune cause I'm going to get millions' singers of today.   Tangent, yes, but that's ok because I'm happy with my awkward iPod mixes of Tom Waits, Sinatra, Queen, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Jack White, Hendrix and the Beach Boys (uh huh, all in one playlist)... even though most people I know refuse to listen to my crazy mixes because they can't stand the random variety.  Sometimes I throw in the Beatles, the Faint, and Gil Scott-Heron... it's like the black hole of playlists.

Semi-pointless entry, but it was a gorgeous sunny day, I've been outside a ton playing in the sun, we got three great new dancers for Mythos:Pathos, I am embarking upon new work, and I have done nothing but what I wanted to do for the past two days.