Glasgow Jazz Festival
Frank Sinatra Jnr
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
two stars
The Family Stone
O2 ABC
four stars
Keith Bruce
IN the tone and timbre of his voice, there is no need for DNA testing to establish the relationship of Frank Sinatra Jnr with his famous father, whose centenary this show celebrated. Now 71 himself, Francis Wayne Sinatra's relationship with pitch is, sadly, more estranged.
In fairness, Frank Jnr did describe himself as the guide for this decade-by-decade survey of pop's career, rather than the star of the show, but the screen-and-soundtrack segments, including a wonderful wartime Warner Bros parody cartoon set in a chicken coop, were really secondary to the impact of the fine twenty-piece band (French horn, vibes and harp included) that backed the singer.
Perhaps if he had some of Pop's stage presence that might have mattered less, but he stalked the stage with all the style of a traffic warden, in tux trousers a tad too short and, oddly, Chelsea boots. His telling of the famous story of Nelson Riddle's last minute arrangement of I Got You Under My Skin for Songs For Swinging Lovers also fell far short of Kurt Elling's version of the same tale when he performed recently with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. And that comparison was never going to favour Frank Jnr.
Hot-footing at the interval after Frank's 1950s, however, and there was time to catch real familial lineage from The Family Stone, with Sly's lover Cynthia Robinson on trumpet and their daughter Phunne Stone on vocals, and original saxophonist Jerry Martini and sensational funky drummer Greg Errico still on board. Battling a truly dreadful soundmix, frontman Alex Davis clearly enjoyed the tuneful vocal contributions of a clued-up crowd from Everyday People and Dance to the Music onwards.
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