Track Listing

1. Come Fly With Me
2. I've Got A Crush On You
3. I've Got You Under My Skin
4. Shadow Of Your Smile
5. Street Of Dreams
6. One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)
7. Fly Me To The Moon
8. One O'clock Jump
9. You Make Me Feel So Young
10. All Of Me
11. September Of My Years
12. Get Me To The Church On Time
13. It Was A Very Good Year
14. Don't Worry 'bout Me
15. Makin' Whoopee
16. Where Or When
17. Angel Eyes
18. My Kind Of Town (Chicago Is)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #63061 in Music
• Released on: 1998-02-13
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Live

Amazon.co.uk Review
This live album captures Frank Sinatra at the peak of his Rat Pack years. Recorded in 1966 at the Sands hotel in Las Vegas, crammed full of Sinatra standards and littered with musical legends, this album has become the de facto standard for arranging big band brass. Frank is backed by the Count Basie Orchestra, which at the time was the best big band in the world. The orchestra is arranged and conducted by the youthful but already accomplished Quincy Jones. From the moment drummer Sonny Payne strikes up the band, the excitement never stops. The sheer power of the playing, from sight-read parts, puts many rock bands to shame. A master wrote each note and each song is crafted to perfection. This CD also captures Sinatra's stage banter. --F.B. Hawkes

From Amazon.com
Pop this on, close your eyes, and you'll be instantly transported back to the Vegas of 1966. The Sands Hotel was still the "class joint" where Sinatra and his Rat Pack buddies partied, held court, and occasionally even performed. This priceless document (Sinatra's first official live album) captures the Chairman of the Board in performance mode, ably supported by conductor-arranger Quincy Jones and Count Basie and his Orchestra. The set list comprises 16 Sinatra classics--including "Come Fly with Me," "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)," "It Was a Very Good Year," and "Angel Eyes"--along with two Basie instrumentals and some seriously un-P.C. stage banter. Essential. --Dan Epstein

CD Description
This live recording from Las Vegas finds Sinatra fully in his element. An artist of his caliber certainly needs no contextualizing element in order to come across, but you'd be hard pressed to find a better medium for Sinatra's message. Vegas in the '60s was a center of unabashed showmanship, slightly crass elegance and a bourbon-drinking, dice-rolling, pre-boomer-generation sensibility--a perfect setting to bring Sinatra's music out of the abstract and into the realm of flesh and blood. At the Sands, the center of Vegas nightlife, Sinatra is the unchallenged king, and on this album he wears the crown with grace. And, naturally, he swings.
Listen to his lengthy mid-set comedy monologue, where stories of drinking, gambling, dame trouble and his rat-pack cronies are shared with the audience in a kind of unspoken accord. Listento his off-handed ribbing of Basie and his musicians, as ifthey were the Sunday-through-Wednesday house band. SINATRA AT THE SANDS is the sound of a man feeling his oats. For further proof, consult the Basie-powered versions of "One For My Baby", "My Kind Of Town" and "I've Got You Under My Skin" contained herein.

Customer Reviews

Not your normal live recording..
I dont normally rave about live albums, firstly the sound quality can be variable, and most importantly they never really capture the spirit of a live performance.

Unfortunately I wasn't born when this was recorded, but it captures a wonderful ambiance from the recording, and one area where Sinatra and the Band really scores, is the fact that they are all supreme musicians, and their performance on the night is exemplary.

I have some Sinatra studio recordings, but I would much rather listen to this, if you only ever buy one Sinatra album, or even only ever buy one live recording, let it be this one.

It is that great..

As good as it gets
You can't get better than this, originally a double LP, now released on a single CD. There is is no recording date on the CD but the LP was released in September 1966, and Sinatra references his own 50th year during the concert ("I think I better sing before I turn 51"), so it was undoubtably recorded in 1966. This means Sinatra was still in peak form at the time.

The great Count Basie Orchestra launches the show and then Sinatra enters saying "How did all these people get in my room"! The Basie Orchestra is fabulous providing the sort of backing that Sinatra should have used more in his career. They do a couple of instrumentals the best of which is "All of me" where I imagine most of the room jumped out of its skin when after a typical minimilist Piano statement of the tune the band enters unexpectedly with a fantastic crescendo chord.

Sinatra is amazing, and there are so many great moments on this disc that its hard to pick out favourites in a short review. However I'll pick two, the swinging version of "Get me to the church on time" and "You make me feel so young". These two tracks alone demonstrate that the man had everything you could wish from a great singer. Beautiful phrasing, immaculate timing and an ability to hold an audience that few others have matched.

There are 21 tracks on the CD, including a couple of monologues from Sinatra which are the two weakest tracks. The arranger and conducter is Quincy Jones, so no loss of quality on that front. This is an absolutely essential purchase for anybody interested in good music regardless of genre.

Stonking Album
This another great Sinatra album. Jazz FM started playing the opening track ages ago and then in typical radio fashion didn't bother with the rest of the album the lazy sods. Even so it was enough to persuade me to buy it. There's a couple of things I'd have swapped. I'd have dumped the monologues and Get Me to The Church but that's being picky. There's also a curious note in Don't Worry Bout Me which he seems to want to slide into and doesn't work but as other reviewers have pointed out it is a fantastic performance. The band is marvellous as you would expect. You won't be disappointed. If that wierd note gets on your nerves, then buy Where Are You? It has the studio version as a bonus track and it's worth the money for that alone.