The Still Of The Night

I played twice today. The first booking was dinnertime at a wedding reception. Just for an hour, before the meal. It was a young wedding, so I didn't get much feedback except for the bride's grandad, (yea, I'm afraid to say most people under fifty couldn't give a fiddler's fart for a cocktail pianist!).
Anyway, I took an instant liking to this old guy when he saw me and said "if we ask the pianist nice, he might play some Gershwin!"
I said "I've never in my life played a booking without playing Gershwin, so you're in luck!".
We chatted after, about 'old' music, and Richard Rogers and Peggy Lee and Cole Porter all that. Of course, we got round to Sinatra. I told him I saw him in the early nineties, and Grandad said "I was there too! The Albert Hall, John Dankworth supporting!"
Sinatra played five nights there in 1992. I was there the second night - great seats too! Roger Moore and Micheal Caine were there the night before, and just before Sinatra arrived he'd had tea with John Major. I saw him arrive in a Limo with police escorts. I climbed up the railings to get above the crowd, and he looked at me, waving. I'll never forget that!
My ticket's framed. I found a nice 8x10 pic from around the same era, and I love it. It means more as time goes on.
Sinatra was 76 when I saw him. I would have been 25. His voice was only an echo of what it once was. But it mattered not, because we were there to celebrate the music, and listening to the full orchestra play all those great arrangements, and the old man was still phrasing so wonderful, being the great showman, making us laugh and feel like he was singing to each and every one of us. I'd listened to Sinatra's music since I was fourteen, and passed the opportunity to see him in 1990, thinking he'd be 'past it'. When he returned in 1992, we knew it would be his last time on these shores. So ready for disappointment, I went. Luckily, I loved it. He forgot a few lyrics, but he was such a powerfully charismatic performer, he could do no wrong. At one point he took a drink, and spat it out on the stage, shouting "water!! who gave me water?"
On the back of my ticket, I wrote the setlist. I scribbled every song before he sung it. (I knew the intros!) I didn't want to forget any of the songs he sung on that night - the only chance I'd ever have to see him.
The medley of The Girl That Got Away/It Never Entered My Mind was sublime. I never thought he'd do it, (it was on a low sales 1981 album).
Here's what he sung. I could have done without Once In My Life or even My Way or New York, New York. Those are Sinatra-lite for the pop generation. The rest is pretty faultless.

Where Or When
In The Still Of The Night
A Foggy Day
For Once In My Life
Come Rain Or Come Shine
The Lady Is A Tramp
My Funny Valentine
Luck Be A Lady
The Best Is Yet To Come
The Gal That Got Away /It Never Entered My Mind
Mack The Knife
One For My Baby
My Way
Summer Wind
New York, New York

He stopped touring two years later, and his last concert was in 1995. And he even had the audacity to sing The Best Is Yet To Come then!
Anyway, that's me rambling about Frank Sinatra all because I chatted to that guy today, and I came over all fond of the singing mafia rug wearing swinger.
I'm listening to him now.