The genre-hopping singer, songwriter, and saxophonist celebrates
the 50th anniversary of Sinatra at the Sands with the Danish Radio Big Band on
new live recording One More for the Road
50 years ago, magic was made on the stage of the Sands Hotel
and Casino in Las Vegas, when the timeless cool of Frank Sinatra met the robust
swing of the Count Basie Orchestra. Sinatra at the Sands has remained a beloved
classic ever since, the perfect marriage of old-school pop and big band jazz.
Singer, songwriter and saxophonist Curtis Stigers has been
bringing those worlds together in his own music for the last three decades
(along with touches of nearly every other genre one could call to mind), which
makes him an ideal candidate to reinterpret Ol’ Blue Eyes’ cherished repertoire
for modern ears. On his twelfth album and ninth release for Concord Records,
One More for the Road, Stigers captures the rare alchemy of hipness, elegance,
playfulness and feeling that made Sinatra’s renditions of these songs immortal
while adding his own unique twist.
On One More for the Road, due out January 20, 2017 via
Concord Jazz, Stigers finds his own version of that elusive Sinatra-Basie
chemistry with the virtuosic and ebulliently swinging musicians of the Danish
Radio Big Band. Recorded in the band’s headquarters, the acoustic marvel that
is the DR Koncerthuset in Copenhagen, the bristling live recording features the
DRBB playing vibrant takes based on the original Nelson Riddle and Billy May
arrangements, which can’t help but spark inspired vocal performances from
Stigers.
Singing in front of a great band executing flawless
reinvigorations of those arrangements “is just extraordinary,” Stigers says.
“It’s like sex. I don’t think there’s a more swinging band in the history of
music than the Count Basie Orchestra, and then you get these classically
trained Danish musicians who have really studied this stuff and played together
so much, it makes it easy to fit into that and sing these amazing songs. It’s
the most fun I’ve ever had, and I think it shows on the record.”
One More for the Road isn’t meant to be a recreation of
Sinatra at the Sands, but uses that classic album as a launching pad for a
full-blooded set of Sinatra’s best-loved tunes. Eight of the new album’s ten
songs, recorded during Stigers’ now-annual January concerts in Copenhagen, come
from that 1966 concert in the Sands’ Copa Room, but the setlist is also
supplemented by Stigers’ takes on “Summer Wind” and “They Can't Take That Away
From Me.”
Just as the album’s track listing isn’t a carbon copy of its
inspiration, Stigers was careful to avoid being a slavish imitation of Sinatra,
making each song its own while retaining the essence of the Chairman’s
unforgettable interpretations. “Singing these songs live is a lot of fun,” Stigers
says, “but going into the recording I had to figure out how to make this not be
just the most fun karaoke that you can possibly do with an incredible band. I
seldom sing a song the same way twice, so I made the songs my own as much as I
could. I try not to sing like Sinatra, but there’s no way that some Sinatra
doesn't get in there. There are certain phrasings that he used that work so
well with the arrangements that I couldn’t not use them. It’s a fine line to
walk, but as a jazz singer and as a recording artist, I’ve always tried to do
everything different every time.”
That’s an apt summation of Stigers’ wildly diverse career,
which has never stopped taking interesting turns ever since he released his
self-titled 1991 debut on Clive Davis’ Arista Records, spawning the hit singles
“I Wonder Why,” “You’re All That Matters to Me” and “Never Saw a Miracle.” He
also contributed a cover of Nick Lowe’s “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love
and Understanding” to the soundtrack of The Bodyguard, which went on to sell
more than 40 million copies. During the next decade he released two more
genre-blurring albums on Arista and Columbia while touring extensively, always
letting his jazz roots bleed over into his pop, soul, blues and Americana
endeavors.
As the millennium turned, however, Stigers decided he wanted
to more deeply explore those roots. He signed to Concord Records, where his
mentor, soul-jazz piano great Gene Harris, also recorded. Beginning with Baby
Plays Around in 2001, Stigers has released a series of albums on Concord that
explore the full range of his musical interests, often giving a classic jazz
spin to rock, pop and country songs by everyone from Sting and Paul Simon to
Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson.
His restless imagination has also led him into a variety of
unusual opportunities, including recording a version of Cole Porter’s “Well,
Did You Evah!” with Seth McFarlane, creator of Family Guy and American Dad, who
then invited Stigers to make a cameo in his movie Ted and perform a song in Ted
2. Stigers also co-wrote and sang the theme song for the acclaimed TV show Sons
of Anarchy, which earned him an Emmy nomination, and made multiple appearances
on The Tonight Show, The Late Show with David Letterman and The Today Show,
among other television programs worldwide.
Stigers has been a voracious listener ever since he bought
his first record, Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, when he was just a
second grader in Boise, Idaho. While he didn’t come around to Frank Sinatra’s
music until later, he remembers the iconic singer always being a presence in
the popular culture of his youth. “Sinatra was everywhere,” Stigers recalls.
“Even in the ’70s when he wasn't ‘cool’ anymore for a while,
he was still always a part of my world. He didn't really mean anything to me,
though, until I got into college and I discovered this record called Frank
Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely that just knocked me out. Suddenly it hit me
that the way he told a story was better than anybody ever in popular music. His
ability to take the lyrics that somebody else wrote and make them a part of his
life, as if they were written about him—that’s what kills me. He becomes that
song when he sings it.”
Stigers absorbed those lessons in his own music, always
focusing on telling the story of the song, touching and communicating with an
audience, rather than showing off his (admittedly prodigious) vocal chops. “The
older I get the more I think of myself not as a singer who can do cool things
with his voice,” he says. “When I was a kid all I wanted to do was scat sing
and prove that I was a great. Now I just want to tell a story. Now I want to
have the people in the audience or the people listening to my records feel the
same way about these songs that I do, that they’re these amazing little three-
or four-minute short stories.”
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