Seth MacFarlane Tackles Frank Sinatra Rarities With ‘Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements’
The album will be released on June 6.
When Frank Sinatra Jr. passed away, Seth MacFarlane was entrusted by the Sinatra family with preserving Frank Sinatra’s priceless physical arrangements, owing to his deep appreciation for the Great American Songbook.
Now, a new album featuring twelve, never-before-heard Frank Sinatra arrangements have been brought to life by Seth MacFarlane and a 70-piece orchestra comprised of all-star players from Los Angeles and London at George Lucas’ Skywalker Sound Studios in Marin County, CA.
The album, titled Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements, includes arrangements by Sinatra’s legendary collaborators—Nelson Riddle, Billy May, and Don Costa—including a unique conceptual Nelson Riddle arrangement of “Lush Life” written for Frank Sintra, which they attempted to record but never completed.
Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements, out on June 6, features never recorded arrangements written for classic Sinatra albums such as Come Fly With Me and Only the Lonely. MacFarlane’s warm, expressive vocals breathe new life into these carefully preserved arrangements. Check out MacFarlane’s rendition of “Lush Life” below.
In collaboration with the Sinatra family and estate, MacFarlane acquired the entire Sinatra music archive in 2018, and has brought these twelve remarkable arrangements to life with acclaimed British conductor John Wilson. The album was produced by MacFarlane’s longtime musical collaborator Joel McNeely. Every song on the album was recorded as a live performance with this ensemble.
MacFarlane spoke with Variety about the project, and noted about Sinatra: “What’s special about what these [arrangers] did, and what’s unique about Sinatra’s role in this is that, with the possible exception of Nat King Cole, there really wasn’t any other vocalist of that era who seemed to understand the importance of an arrangement to the degree that Sinatra did.
“He really had a love for the charts — he understood how they could elevate a vocal. What’s really telling is when you pull the vocal out and you’re just hearing the charts, what you’re hearing is a degree of artistry that is unmatched in popular music before or since. These charts alone, independent of the vocal part, were really high musical art.”
