Frank Sinatra Wants You to Jingle All the Way, or Else

Jolly is not a word I'd ever
use to describe Frank Sinatra,
though he was known for
having a pal named Jilly.

So. Yesterday I discussed some Christmas songs that I like, and as usual I digressed. Today I'll try to keep focus and stay on topic. So focused, in fact, that I'm going to discuss just a single song.

But it's a great song.

I'll throw up some exposition in noting that I bear a slight affection for the Rat Pack, even if music from that era was soured by what the movie Swingers did to many people my age. (Hearing "Vegas, baby!" was almost as pneumatic-roofing-nails-slammed-into-my-cochlea grating as the sounds of Austin Powers impersonators yelling "Yeeeeeaaaahhhh, baby!" when the first of that awful trilogy was released a year later. In fact, I think hearing "baby" in these catchphrases kept me from trying to conceive a baby for almost a decade.)


Keep that in mind (the part about liking the Rat Pack, not the rest of it) because a number of my favorite Christmas songs were sung by Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., as well as one particular song by the Chairman of the Board himself.

Several years ago I checked out from my library a Christmas CD by Frank Sinatra called A Jolly Christmas From Frank Sinatra, which was originally released in 1957 but was re-released in 1963 under a new name. I can imagine how that decision was made.

Capitol Records Executive: Mr. Sinatra, Capitol was planning on re-releasing your Christmas album.

Frank Sinatra: Good idea. I don't have to do any extra work, and we'll make a ton of dough off these tunes. What was the name of that album again?

Exec: A Jolly Christmas From Frank Sinatra, Mr. Sinatra.

Frank (as if someone put too much water in his glass of bourbon): Jolly?

Exec: Yes. A Jolly —

Frank: What's wit' all the "jolly" mumbo-jumbo? Is Frank Sinatra jolly? Would I ever say, "Have a jolly Christmas"?

Exec: Mr. Sinatra, I really don't —

Frank: Dean ain't jolly! Sammy ain't jolly! Peter Lawford — well, he might be a little fruity, but he ain't jolly!

Exec: But that was the name of the album in —

Frank: You know who's jolly? Santa Claus! Do I look like Santa Claus?

Exec: No, Mr. Sinatra. Not at all.

Frank: You know who's jolly? Jack E. Leonard! Burl Ives! Ernie Borgnine!

Exec: Of course, Mr. Sinatra.

Frank: I ain't releasin' no Christmas record with any of that "jolly" hoo-ha. We gotta call it something else.

Exec: Uh...MERRY Christmas From Frank Sinatra?

Frank: Fella, you're missing the point. The young people, they want a Christmas album, and they want a Frank Sinatra album, right? Right? Right. So here's what we're gonna call it...

And that's how it was reissued as The Sinatra Christmas Album.

Overall, the album what you'd expect from a late-1950s Sinatra singing Christmas standards like "Silent Night," but the most memorable track, and one of my favorite Christmas songs, is Frank's rendition of "Jingle Bells."

The orchestra on album was conducted by one Gordon Jenkins, whose Wikipedia bio links him with several Jazz-era singers including Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, plus seven of Frank's albums. "Jingle Bells," the first track on the Christmas album, is definitely "a swinging version."

Frank is clearly having a good time with this bouncy arrangement, and the track is backed up by some vocalists (producing the kind of sound you never hear in a song recorded after like 1971) known as the Ralph Brewster Singers. The opening of the song is quite awesome, as you first hear the jingle bells that you'd expect, but then those singers open with the swinging "I love those J-I-N-G...L-E-S...hoo!" and you realize that this isn't the "Jingle Bells" you've heard a million times before.

But the best part, and it happens so fast, is at around 1:26 (three-fourths of the was through a breezy two-minute tune) when Frank adds the tiniest bit of stutter or scat (I'm not a music expert) to sing "Jingle bells, jing-jingle bells...." I've played this version of the song for my kids and they always crack up when Frank does that, probably because it sounds almost a little subversive.

ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO DISCUSS THAT'S RELATED TO "JINGLE BELLS," THE RAT PACK, OR A COMBINATION OF THE TWO?
As a matter of fact, Sammy Davis, Jr., recorded a fine version of "Jingle Bells," too. You can listen to it here:

Another fine, swinging arrangement. But there's something about the way Sammy sings the chorus, and hits the "JING" of "jingle" really hard, that he sounds like a guy at the end of the day when the kids have been fighting and the wife is exhausted and even though it took him forever to put up the friggin' tree with half the lights not working, we're gonna sing some friggin' Christmas songs because that's what happy families do, got-dammit, so everyone is gonna sing "Jingle Bells" whether they like it or not!

Well, that's what it sounds like to me, especially when Sammy yells/pleads/demands: "Everybody!"

Maybe it doesn't sound that way to you. Or maybe I should leave the tree-erecting duties to the wife next year.