Readers often ask me for my favorite Frank Sinatra track and arrangement from the singer's Capitol years (1953-1962). While I can't tell you which is No. 1 on my list—there are simply too many great ones—I can tell you which recording is in my top 3: There's a Small Hotel.
For the film Pal Joey (1957), which starred Rita Hayworth, Kim Novak and Sinatra, Nelson Riddle arranged the Rodgers and Hart songs—The Lady Is a Tramp, I Didn't Know What Time It Was, I Could Write a Book and There's a Small Hotel.
But some of the songs on the soundtrack weren't the same renditions that were in the movie. One of those was There's a Small Hotel. Riddle wrote a more swinging arrangement for the LP that was more in sync with Sinatra's singing style in 1957. And, I suspect, so Capitol via Sinatra could capitalize on the Columbia film. The hipper version was recorded at Capitol Studios in Hollywood.
The arrangement is fascinating. Not only does it swing but Riddle repeatedly uses a descending motif to create an edge. It's absolutely fascinating, from the intro to the close-out. And the brassy break in the middle driven by the drums is fantastic. If your leg isn't moving back and forth, something is wrong.
Recorded on August 13, 1957, the song featured Conrad Gozzo, Pete Candoli, Harry "Sweets" Edison and George Seaberg (tp); Tommy Pederson, Juan Tizol, Russell Brown and Jimmy Priddy (tb); Skeets Herfurt, Harry Klee, Warren Webb, Ted Nash and Joe Koch (reeds); Paul Nero, Alex Beller, Victor Bay, Marshall Sosson, Mischa Russell. Dan Lube, Jacques Gasselin, Erno Neufield, Harry Bluestone (violin); Maxine Johnson and Barbara Simons (viola); Cy Bernard, Armand Kaproff, Edgar Lustgarten (cello); Bill Miller (p), Al Viola (g), Joe Comfort (b), Alvin Stoller (d) and Kathryn Julye (harp), with Riddle conducting.
Trivia: This song marks the second time Sinatra worked an improvised "ring-a-ding-ding" into the lyric. It comes after the instrumental breakdown, toward the very end: "When the steeple bell / Says ring-a-ding sleep well / We'll thank the small hotel, together."
The first came months earlier on A Swingin' Affair, on I Won't Dance, recorded in 1956: "You know what, you're lovely / Ring-a-ding-ding, you're lovely..."
Here's Sinatra singing There's a Small Hotel from 1957...
Other Perfection tracks in this ongoing series...
- Paul Desmond and Jim Hall: Any Other Time, go here.
- John Coltrane: You Say You Care, go here.
- Quincy Jones: Funk Junction, go here.
- Art Farmer's Work of Art, go here.
- Miles Davis: A Gal in Calico, go here.
- Gene Krupa: Mulligan Stew, go here.
- Dave Brubeck: The Duke, go here.
- Horace Silver: The Back Beat, go here.
- Horace Parlan: Up & Down, go here.
- Dexter Gordon: Society Red, go here.
- Barney Kessel: You Go to My Head, go here.
- Count Basie: Corner Pocket, go here.
- Herbie Mann: Manteca, go here.
- Donald Byrd: Bronze Dance, go here.
- George Shearing: I'll Be Around, go here.
- Ammons & Stitt: You Talk That Talk, go here.
- Count Basie: Blues in My Heart, go here.
- Moonlight in Vermont, go here.
- Johnny Griffin / Matthew Gee, Here, go here.
- Jimmy Smith / Stanely Turrentine: When I'I Grow Too Old to Dream, go here.
- Chet Baker, Estate, go here.
- Jazz Studio 1, Tenderly, go here.
- Herb Pomeroy, Down Home Outing, go here
