Frank Sinatra Jnr, Ronnie Scott's - music review

The spirit of Ol’ Blue Eyes lives on, as Frank Sinatra Jnr sends fans home humming
Like father like son: Sinatra played some of his dad's biggest superhits (Pic: Veda Jo Jenkins/REX)
Veda Jo Jenkins/REX
Jack Massarik1 May 2014

Frank Sinatra OBE, Ol’ Blue Eyes to his fans, liked London so much that he not only gave his final farewell concert here but also the sequel, This Time I Really Mean It, a Royal Albert Hall thrash for which the souvenir programme cost £50 in old money.

And this week his son is back in town, little more than a year after his previous visit and similarly Londoncentric.

“I hope these songs are your favourites, and that even after hearing me sing them they are still your favourites,” said this likeably unpretentious vocalist.

A leaner, fitter performer than last year, he still sounds remarkably like his late father, less so in exact timbre than in his relaxed phrasing and certain way of arriving at significant notes from above rather than below.

Fronting a briskly jazzy octet that managed at times to sound like the whole Nelson Riddle studio orchestra, he delivered an admirably mixed bag of superior songs of many eras, not to mention a passable Ratpack impression of Dean Martin “live and direct from the bar”.

There were also strong anecdotes about Riddle writing four extra songs for the Songs for Swinging Lovers album in 24 hours, and the Gershwin brothers writing Foggy Day in London Town in the 15 minutes it took for their Hollywood cab to arrive.

The biggest Sinatra superhits were wisely saved until the very end, a stratagem designed to send fans home humming I Get a Kick out of You, Strangers in the Night and of course that karaoke killer New York, New York. “Dah dah dah-di-duh, dah dah dah-di-duh . . . ” You know the one.

Until Sat May 3, (020 7439 0747, ronniescotts.co.uk)

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