DINO, AND SAMMY, AND FRANK - O MY!

What tomfoolery! It’s 4 o’clock in the morning, and these bad boys are just getting started. This recording is a rare glimpse into the real, live, Rat Pack experience - and, the slightly distorted, overloaded sound is just part of the cinema verite. “YOU ARE THERE,” as Walter Cronkite once intoned.

The year is 1962. Dean Martin has circled back to the 500 club in Atlantic City, where his career with Jerry Lewis first exploded, and his rat pack brothers in arms are there to support. For anybody devoted to, or interested in this celebrated entourage of 20th century entertainers, you can’t get any closer to the actual experience of being there.

The banter is not particularly clever (they’re enjoying themselves, I won’t say MORE than the audience, but equally, at least). There are lapses in taste and attention to keeping the show moving - (an extended drunken improv about stools is one example) - and, though the finest singers of that generation are not always on perfect pitch here, it matters not a jot! The real personalities of these icons is vividly on display. The pecking order and inter-relationships are fascinating. And, as far as sheer entertainment value goes: The band swings hard, the legendary Sammy Davis Jr. sings, dances, and does impressions; Sinatra and Dino croon medleys to die for, and the whole 40 minutes is boffo. Not to be missed!

“The 4AM Rat Pack performance presented here was privately pressed on vinyl as a special gift to very special 500 Club patrons.

We present this untouched audio from the original acetate as it represents the taste and feel of this historic occasion.”

By Don Altobell

I will never forget August 26, 1962.

I was 24 at the time and after having the good fortune of seeing Dean Martin's appearance at the 500 Club in Atlantic City on Aug 19 -- his first solo gig since his split with Jerry Lewis -- the following week gave me an added treat.

Thanks to a drawing I did of Dean, I was able to see his opening shows and also attend rehearsals. And 500 Club owner Skinny Damato introduced me to Dean, who autographed my drawing, which still hangs on my living room wall.

Fans knew that Dean's pal, Frank Sinatra, would join him midweek to conclude the engagement. Atlantic City was bursting at the seams, with all hotels, motels, and restaurants jam-packed. At the club itself, tables were pushed together to make room for more patrons. It was a bonanza time for Atlantic City long before the first casino was opened.

That closing night after early dinner, I made my way through the block-long line and was ushered inside by a policeman who remembered me after seeing me at so many shows. I didn't mind that I had no seat.

Dean was introduced as the star of the show and opened with "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" followed by "Volare," "On An Evening in Roma" and "Goody, Goody."

Then Sinatra sang, "I Get a Kick Out Of You," followed by Sammy Davis' Jr. doing "The Lady Is A Tramp." (Davis also imitated some actors singing the song including James Cagney and Marlon Brando).

Then Frank, Dean and Sammy clowned around and sang "You Are Too Beautiful," "Love Walked Right In" and "This Is My First Affair."

While Dean and Frank sang, Sammy danced to "I Can't Give You Anything But Love," "Too Marvelous for Words," "It Had To Be You," and "I've Got the World on a String."

Then all three stars joined to close the s

Today we present two piano instrumentals that explore the mysteries of Mist. Strictly speaking, a “mist” can be defined by some water vapor that obscures your vision, but how many more evocative instances can you think of where a mist appears in a story or film, usually preceding an arrival of some spiritual manifestation? There was a video game called “Myst” (spelled with a Y) which featured a series of puzzles saturated with a heady whiff of the arcane. Your sight is always obscured; your emotional restlessness is never assuaged.

Erroll Garner and Bix Beiderbecke were two jazz titans writing compositions separated by 30 years that hint at this other-worldly quality inherent in the idea of the Mist. Their music excites the senses and tugs at the heart simultaneously; it’s music that lifts off and keeps insinuating an urge to maintain altitude in an unresolved quest for landing, but never deciding on a perch.

ERROLL GARNER

Most of you probably know Johnny Mathis’s version of Misty, with lyrics by Johnny Burke, that was a monster hit of 1959, but Erroll Garner wrote the song as an instrumental 5 years earlier, on a plane flight to Chicago’s OHare airport, after seeing a rainbow through the airplane window. That’s a fitting image for the complicated feelings invoked here: a glimpse of hope through tears.

Influenced by Earl Hines, Garner played with spontaneous timing changes, liquidy octaval melodies, and improvised chordal voicings, and his contribution to jazz evolution was to reconcile the gap between BeBop spontaneity and Orchestral formalism. His style was so free that he was dubbed “the happy man” because this joy he exuded was so palpable. Misty was concocted from the eternal music of the spheres - maybe because his feet were not on the ground when he composed it.

BIX BEIDERBECKE

The comet of Bix Beiderbecke’s talent was a mystery in itself: dead from alcohol in 1931 at the age of 28, his cornet style and compositional originality continues to fascinate almost 100 years later. A self taught musician, Bix appeared from podunk Iowa and immediately became a ragtime sensation at the height of the Jazz era with The Wolverines, then with Paul Whiteman’s orchestra (along with Bing Crosby). He was a white man playing a traditionally black form of music, which was a novelty, and that made him easier to market to middle America - but such genius is color blind.

Although renowned for his horn playing, he composed In a Mist on piano in 1927 (he was 24), and it’s here that you see the influence of the impressionist composer Claude Debussy, the creator of such sensuous works as Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and La Mer. Is this Jazz? How did he do it? Clearly, Bix was in touch with mystical forces beyond human understanding, or maybe, like Robert Johnson, he just made a deal with the devil. Either way, the spiritual quest suggested by these chord changes transports us into a misty continent of emotional confusion.

Given that we lost Brian Wilson recently, and there’s been a lot of talk about the elimination of the affordable subcompact, I thought we could reflect a bit upon America’s obsession with the automobile. The BIG auto; the POWERFUL auto. Especially here in Los Angeles - you gotta have wheels - and you’ll be judged by what you drive. Once, while stopped at an intersection in my little Saturn, I was heckled mercilessly by some tweens on skateboards.

On the other side of the argument sits the Goddess Shania Twain - that Canadian Everywoman who raised her siblings single handedly, then went on to conquer Country

Pop music with songs like That Don’t Impress Me Much - where she declares that you may have a hot car, Hoss, but, that don’t make you a man in her book. She puts it all in perspective.

LITTLE DEUCE COUPE / THE BEACH BOYS

Nowadays, I drive a Prius, but occasionally I’ll admire the sleek lines of a Dodge Challenger, and fantasize that I could be that muscle car guy. The Prius is wimpy - ya gotta go for The BIG auto; the POWERFUL auto. I can trace this fascination back to ’63, when at the age of 10, I heard Little Deuce Coupe for the first time. I didn’t know what Deuce Coupe meant, but that was ok because Brian Wilson sang “You don’t know what I got!” I now know that the title refers to a 1932 Ford Coupe, and the whole California culture of the drag race was popularized around the country with the invocation of this souped up Franken-car.

There were other mechanical beasts in the Wilson canon: There was the T Bird of Fun, Fun, Fun; the “duel in the sun” opponents - the corvette Stingray vs the Mopar described in Shut Down, Granny from Pasadena’s brand new shiny red super stock Dodge, and their anthemic ode to the Chevy 409, but The Deuce Coupe was purportedly Brian’s favorite. You can thank Brian’s lyricist Roger Christian for these automotive articulations, but Brian knew how to implant them into our hearts and minds with his rhythms, melodies, and harmonies.

THAT DON’T IMPRESS ME MUCH / SHANIA TWAIN

This is where the macho mechanical mythos gets deflated: Shania lets us know in no uncertain terms what makes a man desirable - it’s not your looks, brains, and especially not your car. It’s your courage to commit, your ability to listen, your kindness and tenderness. These are the qualities that win you a place at her table and in her bed.

Because she doesn’t need you. Next to Taylor Swift, Shania is the most successful female Country recording artist. whose albums have spent 97 weeks as the Top Country Albums chart leader. Former husband/producer Mutt Lange may have helped to craft those catchy Pop hits around an image of an accessible Wonder Woman, but even if she hadn’t become a mogul, I have a feeling that Shania’s integrity and sense of who she is would never have faltered.