IT POURED SWEET AND CLEAR

The title, "September Of My Years," and the song selection pretty much tells the story here. The cover drawing shows Frank gazing, arms folded looking to the side, if not over his shoulder. The heat was on him in musical terms, but you still had to come across cool no matter the temperature. He’s dressed for dinner and the cuff links let you know that he didn’t just grab something out of the closet. Folding money says he won’t be gassing up and driving his own car either. But dinner is only the appetizer for this evening. It’s a special event, tonight is a milestone that he wants to tackle head on. He wants to get there first. This day won’t end until the wee small hours of the next one.

It was 1965, Frank was hitting fifty and wanted an album of songs to reflect if not celebrate it. Some of the songs were newly written for the project, others had been around a bit. He chose them all like he was filling out an all star ballot. There would be no DH, everyone had to pull their load. He was no stranger to the concept album. He essentially invented it in the fifties with his Capitol recordings. These songs had autumn, melancholy, scotch, Camel cigarettes and sadness soaking each groove of the vinyl. What words didn’t say Gordon Jenkins did with his remarkable arrangements. Often using only a single instrument to mimic the passing of years or watching a lover disappear in one song only to re-emerge in another. Nelson Riddle gets most of the ink, but Jenkins was no less a master.

Staring down fifty and still the Chairman of the board. Half a century in the books. The bottle was still half full, plus it came off of the top shelf at Jilly’s. So far it had been his century as much as anyone’s. Forty years ago fifty was a lot older than it is now. He had lived a large and full life up to that point. His musical contributions weren’t done yet. However they would be less innovative in a market that had seen it all. He would be on the charts several more times with some sizable hits, but he would be there alone. There would be no Dean, Bing, Judy or Sammy a few rungs above or below him to make it all look like they still had the world on a string. The others had become performers, no longer artists, content to take a victory lap for an era that had shrunk to the stages of Vegas and television. They belonged to another generation in the public’s mind. Frank had spawned his own generation and wanted a piece of the current one. He felt he still had some very good years left.

Dean would resurface from time to time and even boast a successful television show. There he was content to impersonate the public’s perception of himself for one hour a week. Nice work if you can get it indeed. In death Dean would acquire all that Frank had in life. Dean never seemed to mind. Not when there were young girls outside of the dressing room, old whiskey on the makeup table and a private tee time waiting outside the limo. Dean preferred things that could be handled. Frank preferred to do the handing out. Dean was willing to look the other way and move on. Frank was willing to let a few bad years dominate his life to the point that he wouldn’t be happy until every slight was squared to his satisfaction. In each other they saw how they each could have turned out. Frank got his rewards here on earth, while Dean got his in heaven. That’s life.

At this point Frank was still an artist searching for meaningful material to plug the dam that rock and roll had breached. He couldn’t do it alone anymore, so he had to be content with pleasing his audience first and then hope that the kids found something they could connect with. An album of middle aged songs about a guy taking stock of his life wouldn’t do the trick this time. But it was something Frank had to do, he needed a dividing line. This nostalgic glance over his shoulder would scratch that itch until the real thing came along.

Classic versions of songs abound here. “September Song” stands with anyone’s version and fits this album without becoming a cliché. “Hello Young Lovers” tells the tale of I know what it’s like to be young and in love, but you don’t know what it’s like to be older and heartbroken on this night. It’s the sage advice that those in love never hear when it’s being said to their faces. Of course the title track gets the evening off to a stirring start like that first drink. The one that makes you think they are all going to go down this easy.

The centerpiece of the album is his rendition of “It Was A Very Good Year.” It showcases his vocal ability as well as anything from his Capitol era. The phrasing used to introduce each age as though he is repeating the question and then losing himself in his remembrances borders on perfection. He treats the song as though it were a chance to validate his world. When the decadence of his lifestyle confronts him by age thirty five it’s as though the song has now become a cautionary parable. By the time he reaches the last verse though his voice is commanding and the tinges of regret each verse brought are cast aside while he finishes the last sips of a vanished youth. That glass is empty, but the bottle, like the night, is still within reach.

“But now the days are short, I’m in the autumn of the year,
And I think of my life as vintage wine, from fine old kegs,
From the brim to the dregs, it poured sweet and clear,
It was a very good year.”
(Drake)