Here's Sinatra doing "I've Got You Under My Skin" (1965) with Nelson Riddle conducting his chart--sounds like jazz to me!?--also watch Sinatra taking deep breaths--it's very obvious:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/wm-A10302B00007637384/frank_sinatra_ive_got_you_under_my_skin_official_music_video/
ALSO I will ask Will Friedwald how Sinatra was able to conduct. All sources says Sinatra had no training and did not read music (maybe he was just an amateur conductor--waved the stick when he knew the music by heart?).
I mentioned his support of civil rights, but forgot to mention that he also had Mafia friends!! (In a famous incident, Sinatra successfully encouraged President JFK to start an affair with a woman he know, then invited a Mafia boss to see the same girl! When JFK found out, he cut off relations with the woman and also with Sinatra of course!) Talk about contradictions!
ALSO this Wikipedia page has good info on Sinatra--mentions his civil rights film in 1945, his comeback as an actor in the early 50s, and his Mafia connections:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sinatra
And here is his info on his conducting:
Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color
• Release Date: 1956
With his comeback secure, Frank Sinatra again took up the baton in advocacy of music between the cracks, this time with a near 60-person orchestra of Hollywood musicians and a set of 12 commissions from eight composer/arrangers. With the poetry of radio writer Norman Sickel as a guide, each composer was assigned different colors to muse upon, with Victor Young, Jeff Alexander, Alec Wilder, andNelson Riddle receiving two each, and Billy May, Gordon Jenkins, Elmer Bernstein, and André Previn one apiece. The performances are as sure-footed and assured as on Sinatra's Alec Wilder sessions, though without the restless, on-edge quality that marked that 1945 conducting debut. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
Lewis
I've noticed that Frank is very good at singing "to" the audience. Both of the songs we have heard from him, "Hello Young Lovers" and "I've Got You Under My Skin," include lyrics that address the listener directly with the word "you". In "Hello, Young Lovers," the listener is encouraged to "be brave," "don't cry," "follow your star," and so forth. "I've Got You Under My Skin" is a confession of love to the listener. I have noticed that Frank likes to use a talking voice, as opposed to a pure singing voice, when the line is especially direct and pointed.
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