Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim (1967)
“The instrument: Guitar, The beat: Bossa Nova, The artist: One of the inventor of the all new sound – Antônio Carlos Jobim” Sinatra introduced Jobim to the audiences on his show “A Man and His Music”, televised in the United States on the 13th November 1967.
During the show, Sinatra happily sang a medley along with Jobim while he smoked a cigarette (it should be banned if the show were performed nowadays of anti-smoking policy), it was a good time for both Sinatra and Jobim after they jointed the album “Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim” which was released by the late March of 1967 after only 3 days recording during 30th January to 1st February of the same year.
The album combined ten tracks starts with the great but common Bossa Nova song “The girl from Ipenama” sang by Sinatra, a bit unfamiliar if you listened to the lady version originated by Astrud Gilberto before. The other tracks are all recorded with Jobim’s character, even the songs “Change Partners”, “I Concentrate on You”, and “Baubles, Bangles and Beads”, the standard songs from the Great American Songbook were played with the Bossa Nova style. For these three songs, Sinatra did good jobs, maybe because of there are all original American songs.
However, the feedback on this album quite not good, the critics commented the voice of Sinatra isn’t getting along well with this kind of music.
The following collaborative album of Sinatra and Jobim was recorded in 1970 but before released to public, it was pulled out due to concerns over the sales potentials. Some of the 1970’s Sinatra-Jobim tracks were put in the Sinatra & Company album (1971) and the Sinatra-Jobim Sessions compilation (1979) which was released in Brazil only. Despite the negative feedbacks, the Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim is one of the Sinatra’s and Jobim’s remarkable talents, shows the music has no boundary and present the mellow softness of Sinatra’s singing even though it wasn’t his well-recognized grace. Anyway, that is the history of music which is a couple of legendary artists teamed up to create an unforgettable moments.