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Seth Macfarlane Thought he heard every Sinatra song. Then he recorded them himself.
The creator of Family guy speaks exclusively to people about his new album Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangementscontaining unregistered songs from decades ago – along with his surprising connection to Frank Sinatra.
Macfarlane’s Association with Frank’s son, Frank Sinatra Jr.goes back to its animated comedy series, Family guy. Frank Jr. showed up at the show several times, and Macfarlane, 51, “got to know him something good.”
“He always had some insight when it comes to classic orchestras and information that I didn’t know every time he would come in,” he says, adding that he is a “buff when it comes to orchestras from that era.”
“In addition, he was the trustee at the time of all the arrangements his father had gathered during his career.”
Kenya Fitzgerald
Following Frank Jr.’s death in 2016The his sister Tina Sinatra was the manager of the arrangements, with which he grew close.
“She was looking for a home for all these charts and asked me if I would be interested in acquiring them. The goal was not to let them sit in a museum anywhere and collect dust, but to get them to play,” he continued.
After taking over the lists from Tina, 77, Macfarlane realized that many songs in the archives were never sung by ol ‘blue eyes, which go back to the late 50’s and early 60s.
“We hired an orchestra, switched to Fox (Studio Lot) and played as many of these things as we had time for and discovered that there was really an entire album here, songs that for some reason he had decided not to act when they were written.”
Murray Garrett/Getty
Macfarlane says there were “so many songs that had just sat there in boxes for seven decades, just waiting to be found.”
“I had always assumed that I had heard every Sinatra recording ever made and heard every song that was ever, or every arrangement ever written for him, and that was not the case.”
The Grammy-nominated singer estimates that there are about three albums that are worthy songs in the archives.
The most difficult part of the process was to recreate the same heat that Sinatra brought to his arrangements and recordings. Often, orchestra jazz in modern times has a homogenized, type of antiseptic type of feeling, “says Macfarlane.
“Over the years, there were things we learned, specific things we discovered through research as far as why it was that these recordings sound like they do. Part of it was that we record to roll-to-wheels as opposed to digital, and that gives you a warmer sound.”
With an orchestra of 70 musicians from the United States and the United Kingdom, Macfarlane was able to turn the arrangements into something “a little more lasting with a large arrangement and a great attitude to the recording.”
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Macfarlane was a long Sinatra fan, but his admiration became deeper throughout the college after he bought a “best of sinatra” cd and listened to a recording of “three coins in the fountain.”
“There is something really special that happens to this guy’s arrangement,” he reminds to realize. “This sounds like I’m listening to a movie point that sings. It is, as I found out later, was a type of norm for Frank.”
“There are recordings, especially in his ballads, where you will hear a minute -length introduction from the orchestra before the song even comes in. It was something I really responded to,” adds Macfarlane and compares them to a karaok track that lacks variance.
“Sinatra-diagrams were very different. It happened so much in the orchestra, it happened so much and so much detail that even without that vowel it was just a kind of artwork on my own. That’s how I found myself in Sinatra, a kind of reverse technology.”
Kenya Fitzgerald
As for his favorite Sinatra record? Frank Sinatra sings only for Lonely From 1958. “All involved, the organizers, the recorders, Sinatra themselves – it’s just everyone at the top of their talent and at the peak of their career,” he says.
Next for Macfarlane is a limited commitment to Voltaire at Venetian in Las Vegas.
“We will make some songs from this new album and a bunch of other things also with about a 35-part orchestra,” he says about the three programs and takes place July 3-5. “It will really be an old school Vegas experience in real sense. It’s a serious bunch of musicians and I look forward to it.”
Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements is available to stream.