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Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2023
I'm a Sinatra tribute singer and I was interested in having this book since it approximated the big band arrangements for piano. It's mostly useful but hardly the very best in my opinion. As a tribute singer I perform the very best and some of these tunes are not very well known and rarely, if ever, requested. Cycles? Love's Been Good to Me? Talk to Me? There's No You? Nope. Also, the songs are supposed to be in the original key. Come Fly with Me is written in B major in this book but it's always recorded and performed in Bb. They must have listened to Michael Buble' version which is in B. So one star off for that. Also some of the chord names are just wrong. In the 3rd bar of I've Got the World on a String shows Em7b5 (a half diminished), but the notes of the chord are Em11 (no Bb in that chord)!
Jess K. Harris
Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2014
This is a straight-up book of 40 Sinatra favorites in the original keys. The accompniment and notation of the singer's part hints at the style, but does not attempt to fully replicate the style. I like that, because it doesn't inhibit the singer and players in developing their own take. Great music, well bound, exaclty as I would expect from this publisher. If, however, you're looking for a spiral-bound book that will easily stay open on a piano, this isn't it. This book should be used to assist the players in learning the songs and guide them in developing their own version of these classics.
Rolando B. Fauni
Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2014
This book deserves this 5-star rating. If you're into singing or accompanying Sinatra songs, you can never go wrong doing the original recording with this book. I do the bass and this certainly provides the right chords to follow at the right key. Unlike the other book which I returned, this saves me a lot of effort transposing the scores to the original keys. I hope a sequel of this comes out soon.
xpert
Reviewed in Germany on February 11, 2014
An diesem Buch gefällt mir besonders gut, dass es sich nicht um die üblichen "Piano, Vocal, Guitar"-Transkriptionen handelt, die man überall kaufen kann. Dabei enthält die ausnotierte Klavierstimme oft die Melodie und die Begleitung ist stark vereinfacht. Das ist meistens nichts, wenn man zusammen mit einem Sänger und/oder einer Combo spielt. Stattdessen findet man hier eine vollständige Klavierbegleitung, die oft nicht die Melodie enthält, dafür aber Intros, Outros und Fills, wie sie auf den Originalaufnahmen von dem Orchester bzw. der BigBand gespielt werden. Das ist fantastisch und genau das, was ich von einer Piano-Transkription erwarte. Gleichzeitig ist die Klavierbegleitung deshalb aber auch recht anspruchsvoll, weshalb sich das Buch nur an erfahrene Pianisten richtet. Natürlich kann man aber auch einfach an manchen Stellen auf die Akkorde ausweichen. Deshalb: klare Kaufempfehlung für erfahrene Pianisten mit Sänger.
John Raines
Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2014
Stellar arrangements in Frank's big band style. They capture the flavor of the recordings while remaining very pianistic and playable. Excellent editing considering the constant use of altered chords — I have found very few typos, and they may be merely matters of taste at that. What I find frustrating, however, is the spelling of many chords, which are notated in unusual ways and don't necessarily reflect the expected chord/hand shape. It happens a lot in modulating passages and causes unnecessary hesitation in sight-reading.
bassbow
Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2013
This book of transcriptions is blowing my mind with the incredible sophistication, subtlety, and beauty of the arrangements (and of course the songs themselves). I believe that careful study of this material can give the singing pianist a tremendous education in some of the most incredible popular music ever made. And, popular or not, this stuff is on par with the greatest composed classical art songs.
George R. Wilmot
Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2013
These transcriptions are great for a sight-reading pianist. The chord symbols are much harder to use to play these songs though, e.g. on guitar or for a poor piano sight reader like myself. It's funny because the precision of the chord symbols is impressive -- even the little one-beat chromatic transition chords are notated, often with the accurate extensions (Eg Ab13#11). But some of the chords are precise to the point of being misleading, e.g. while in the key of E a chord containing a B,D, and A was labeled Bm when functionally it is clearly dominant, so it should be B7#9.
Ricky Fox
Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2013
The actua original arrangement in piano score format. If its too hard for you to sing in the original keys or play the piano in those keys, this book is not meant for you. It is a great study tool for beginning arrangers who care more about knowing something about arranging other than which sample beat to lay down on the drum track.
JH
Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2011
This is about as faithful to the recordings as it gets. Woody Mankowski's transcriptions bring the orchestra or band backup under the hand of the pianist and notate the rhythmic pacing of Frank's vocal line wonderfully. The piano parts are not "easy-to-play" as they are so close to what you hear on the recordings, so a more experienced pianist will get more out of this book than a beginner. Sight-reading these arrangements (some more than others) was challenging. There are no guitar tabs, only chord names, so an accompanying guitarist will not find inversions and will have more work to match the recording than the pianist, but the chords can certainly help the pianist recognize chords more quickly. I would have loved to have had Pennies From Heaven included, but I suppose you have to draw the line somewhere! Tremendous quality collection.
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