Review (AMG)
Most of the Sinatra recordings available during the 1950's consisted of his contemporary work for Capitol Records. But every so often his former label, Columbia Records, would get something together on LP from among his forties and early 1950's sides. The Voice was one of a handful of 1950's long-players showcasing the first phase of Sinatra's solo career, and at the time it wowed listeners the focus is on the ballads, and the dozen represented here constitute a bumper-crop of classics, all resplendant in the singer's richest, most overpowering intonation and most delicately nuanced work. The sensibilities, from the lushly seductive "Laura" to the gently self-satisfied "(I Got A Woman Crazy For Me) She's Funny That Way", show off a huge emotional range, and the latter song may be the highlight of the album, displaying a soft yet smugly confident brand of machismo, all of it drenched in Axel Stordahl's overflowing string arrangements, yet quietly bold in its emotional content. It's that stretch of subtexts that, coupled with the beauty of Sinatra's instrument and Stordahl's arrangements, make the singer's Columbia material so striking to hear his subsequent work on Capitol and Reprise would be defined differently, and usually more directly, along with the texture and range of his singing. The Columbia material tended to get neglected, both in the marketplace and most listeners' minds, as his career extended across the decades, but hearing The Voice anew is a reminder of just how overpowering Sinatra's sound could be, even in the early phase of his solo work. This album which was actually a re-editing (and something of a corruption) of his 78 r.p.m. album The Voice of Frank Sinatra was a huge seller at the time of its release in 1955, and it's a sign of just how large it loomed in Columbia's history that it was was among the earliest releases selected for inclusion in Sony Music's audiophile-oriented Mastersound CD series of the early 1990's, deluxe packaging, gold CD and all.
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