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Nothing But The Best | 
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| Artist: Frank Sinatra
Label: Reprise / Wea
Category: Music
List Price: $18.98
Buy New: $7.99
You Save: $10.99 (58%)
New (47) Used (14) Collectible (4) from $7.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  63 reviews
Sales Rank: 173
Format: Original Recording Remastered
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.3 x 4.8 x 0.6
MPN: 438652
UPC: 081227993689
EAN: 0081227993689
Release Date: May 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Come Fly With Me | | • | The Best Is Yet To Come | | • | The Way You Look Tonight | | • | Luck Be A Lady | | • | Bewitched | | • | The Good Life | | • | The Girl From Ipanema | | • | Fly Me To The Moon In Other Word | | • | Summer Wind | | • | Strangers In The Night | | • | Call Me Irresponsible | | • | Somethin Stupid | | • | My Kind Of Town | | • | It Was A Very Good Year | | • | That's Life | | • | Moonlight Serenade | | • | Nothing But The Best | | • | Drinking Again | | • | All My Tomorrows | | • | My Way | | • | Theme From New York, New York | | • | Body And Soul |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Released to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Frank Sinatra's passing (May 14, 1998), Nothing But The Best salutes "The Voice" with an essential single-disc compilation of hits. It features 21 legendary songs from "The Chairman Of The Board," plus a previously unissued version of "Body And Soul." The collection is part of an international initiative between the newly created Frank Sinatra Enterprises (FSE), Warner Home Video, MGM Home Entertainment, Turner Classic Movies, and the United States Postal Service to honor Frank Sinatra, whose music and movies had an everlasting impact on popular culture. For a limited time, Nothing But The Best will contain a collectible, commemorative Sinatra stamp with official USPS first-day issue cancellation. Frank Sinatra Photos More from Frank Sinatra 
Swing Along with Me | 
Lucky Numbers | 
The Concert Sinatra Live | 
Sinatra-Basie | 
Everything Happens to Me | 
Francis A. Sinatra & Edward K. Ellington | 
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim | 
Christmas Collection | 
The Rat Pack Live at the Sands | 
Greatest Love Songs | 
I Remember Tommy | 
It Might as Well Be Swing | 
L.A. Is My Lady | 
Ring-a-Ding Ding! | 
September of My Years | 
Sinatra & Sextet: Live in Paris | 
Sinatra and Strings | 
Sinatra and Swingin' Brass | 
Sinatra at the Sands Live | 
Sinatra in Hollywood 1940-1964 Box Set | 
Romance: Songs From the Heart | 
Sinatra: Vegas Live Box Set | 
Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely | 
A Voice in Time: 1939-1952 Box Set | 
The Capitol Years Box Set | 
In the Wee Small Hours | 
My Way: The Best of Frank Sinatra | 
A Man and His Music | 
My Way | 
Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back | 
Sinatra's Sinatra | 
Strangers in the Night | 
The Main Event Live | 
The Reprise Collection Box Set | 
Duets/Duets II: 90th Birthday Limited Collector's Edition |
Album Description
2008 release of Sinatra's album Nothing But The Best. The album features 22 newly remastered classics from Sinatra's Reprise years including re-recordings of Capitol tracks, commemorating the 10th anniversary of Sinatra's passing on May 14th 1998 and the album includes a previously unissued version of 'Body And Soul' with a newly recorded arrangement. Collection of legendary songs including: 'My Way', 'Fly Me To The Moon', 'Luck Be A Lady', 'Strangers In The Night', 'Somethin' Stupid' and more.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 58 more reviews...
 A Superb If Incomplete Introduction To The Reprise Years. May 15, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I'll be honest. When I first heard about this cd through The Sinatra Family Forums back in February, I was ready to tear it to shreds. I thought to myself, "Frank's gone 10 years now, and they're marking the event with yet another compilation with same songs repackaged for the umpteenth time?" Even when it was announced that the songs were to be digitally remastered and a never before released bonus track was to be included, my anger and resentment towards this compilation still stuck.
However, as the release date grew nearer and I got word from several people who were able to hear it before it officially hit the market told me it was totally worth it, I slowly warmed up to it and by last week was all set on buying it.
When I received the cd this afternoon, I was extremely excited, even though I thought myself, "I heard these songs thousands of time before." The first thing that struck me was how beautiful the packaging was: the cd comes in a cardboard case with one of the best pictures of Frank ever taken. The cd's booklet is made from a elegant, smooth velvet like material and the liner notes by Charles Pignone as well as the various rare photos of Frank at work are excellent. Honestly, the packaging alone is enough to grab your attention.
But enough about the artwork. What about the music?
As stated already, my biggest concern with this collection was that I heard all these songs before. I had already received the mammoth "Complete Reprise Studio Recordings" boxed set, which had all these songs (except one) as well as over 400 additional tracks, all of which featured more than satisfactory sound quality. Still, undaunted, I popped the cd onto my Ipod and went for a listen.
Needless to say, I was blown away.
The sound quality is INCREDIBLE. To hear the opening notes of "Come Fly With Me" bristle with sharpness and clarity is in itself a major thrill, and to hear Frank's voice with such depth and range only adds to the fun.
Seriously, there were parts of certain songs I never noticed before. Listen to how beautiful the harp sounds on "Bewitched" (remastered from the original 35MM tapes) or how sharp and clear Count Basie's classic piano ticklings on the intro to "The Best Is Yet To Come" sound, or how fresh and powerful the horns on "New York, New York" blaze through the speakers. Sonically, the album is as close to flawless as humanly possible.
Furthermore, knowing that many fans would be concerned with the whole "I've heard these songs before" stigma, the producers included several little bonuses on certain songs to surprise faithful listeners:
(WARNING: If you don't me to spoil these surprises, skip this section!)
-The tag on "Come Fly With Me" has been changed from "And don't tell your momma" to another line from an alternate take, "Pack a small bag."
-Though sources say otherwise , "The Best Is Yet To Come" seems to be a different mix (possibly spliced together from another take). Listen to how Frank phrases "Come the day you're mine" on the bridge, it's different from previous releases.
-"Strangers In The Night" is extended, with a few more "Do be do be do's."
But the real surprise, however, is the never before released track. "Body And Soul," an old standad Frank first recored for Columbia in 1947, dates back to the "L.A. Is My Lady" sessions in 1984 with Quincy Jones. For whatever reason, Frank was dissatisfied with the initial take on the song, and left it off the album.
24 years later, however, Frank Sinatra Jr. dusted off Frank's vocal track, removed Jones' arrangement, and instead recorded a new orchestral backing that fits the song beautifully. Listening to this new majestic chart for the song, you'd never guess it was initially planned for the overly produced "L.A. Is My Lady" (a potential masterpiece marred by too many slick, 1980s' style production values). It sounds like it was supposed to be on "Sinatra & Strings."
And if the orchestration isn't enough, what about The Man himself? Here's Frank, in the autumn of his years, still better than anyone around, punching out a timeless stanard with the same passion and fury that permeated through his most beloved recordings. It is a truly tour de force performance that was worth the wait.
For all the pros for "Nothing But The Best," there are, however a few cons. My main gripe, and it might be asking for a bit too much, is that it could've been two discs. There are a lot of Frank's best recordings from the Reprise era missing, such as "In The Still Of The Night," "The Coffee Song," "You're Nobody 'Till Somebody Loes You," "Come Rain Or Come Shine," (or anything from "Sinatra & Strings," which is undeservedly snubbed), "They Can't Take That Away From Me," "Ol' Man River," (arguably his best recording ever), "I Have Dreamed," "Soliloquy," "All Or Nothing At All," (either the 1961 ballad rendition or the thrilling 1966 swing version would have sufficed) and many others could've been included, to give the cd a bit more diversity instead of the typical hits. Also, while they were arguably done better in their initial Capitol incarnations, his redoings of "I Get A Kick Out Of You," "I've Got You Under My Skin," "All The Way," "In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning," "How Little We Know," and others are still excellent renditions and are worth including.
But in the end, this nitpicking adds little. The fact of the matter "Nothing But The Best" is still an excellent compilation with unbeatable sound with 22 songs ung by the greatest singer popular music has ever heard.
Doubling the gold standard (deserves even a Sinatra collector's attention) June 3, 2008
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
No doubt most Sinatraphiles will have the original albums, always the better bet with an artist who, along with Riddle, Jenkins, May and Co., saw the album not as a random collection of songs but a carefully conceived whole. Each of these songs was meant to be an integral part of organically developed tone poems, or suites, in which the individual selections are microcosmic movements of a sonata or symphony (the hallmark, above all, of the earlier Capitol recordings, whether swingers or "suicide" songs). To my mind, only the material from the Columbia period of the 1940s before the long-playing album (a format which Sinatra was the first to exploit artistically) is ideally suited for anthologizing.
Ignore the liner notes' suggestion that Sinatra's best period--vocally or artistically--was during the '60s for his own Reprise label, the primary source for the tracks on this anthology. And take with a grain of salt any suggestion that songs like "Somethin' Stupid," "Strangers in the Night," "Nothing But the Best," "Drinking Again," "My Way," even "NY, NY" and "That's Life" are, however worthy, representative of Sinatra's "best" among his Reprise treasures. Nor are even the Capitol recordings the last word: as we approach another Independence Day, his sublime, still politically-relevant 1945 Columbia recording, "The House We Live In," is the one deserving the American public's (and world's) attention.
But any like-minded Sinatra fan who's read this far would do well to scroll down to #22 on this collection and download it to their computer. When Sinatra revisited "Body and Soul" in 1984, the #1 popular song of all time was still considered to be "Stardust." Had he known that it would soon be overtaken and eclipsed by "Body and Soul," he might have felt differently about electing not to release this version, recorded 40 years after Ole Blue's earlier recording of the tune.
Several years ago former President Clinton revealed, during a public conversation with Wynton Marsalis, that he knew as much, mentioning that his iPod held more versions of B&S than any other tune. If you look up the number of recorded versions of a song (at allmusicguidedotcom or at jazzstandardsdotcom), you'll discover that B&S is decisively out in front, with well over 2000 recorded versions by different artists. Primarily the Excalibur for any musician who's played a tenor saxophone, the tune has never done as well by vocalists (the lyric is quite awkwardly written), Billie Holiday remaining the acknowledged standard-bearer among the vocal interpreters of the tune.
Sinatra's performance rivals hers on this occasion, a point in his career when he was 70 years old (Billie died at age 39). Without going into a close analysis of how he does it, it's at least worth considering why he may have dismissed it at the time. On the final chorus he suddenly moves out of a comfort zone in the C below middle C range and reaches for a beautifully executed Eb above middle C. Then in the song's final cadence he returns to that note. The execution isn't as flawless this time but, if anything, it's more expressive--nevertheless with a hint of strain that might discourage a perfectionist. Then he precipitously drops down an octave and a half and misses--ever so slightly--the target of Ab. The breath reserves aren't quite adequate, the pitch a bit unsteady--however, he practically instantaneously corrects himself, adjusting the note so deftly that only a cold analysis like this would think it worth mentioning, or presume to separate a mere technicality from the overall spell cast by the singer and the song on this singular occasion.
But here it is for the first time, 61 years after his first recording of the tune--and perhaps the timing couldn't be better.
It's Been Done Before, but Great Sound May 14, 2008
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Granted any definitive Sinatra 'greatest' collection would have to include seventy or eighty songs, this collection is a good starting point for those who may not have much of Sinatra's music already. The CD contains only work from his Reprise years, nothing earlier. No Columbia or Capitol stuff at all, so to say it's nothing but the best is a misnomer. You can get a complete Reprise collection for about forty bucks with a lot more stuff on it.
Granted also that Sinatra's work is best in its original concept album format. The songs lose some of their punch when they are not surrounded by the original album songs because the thematic thread is lost.
That having been said, I found the remastering to be quite excellent. The music is bright and jumps out at you as only the original vinyl does. As someone who has almost all of Sinatra's stuff on vinyl and CD, I am still glad I bought this, not only for the clarity and the good song selection, but for the free United States postage stamp bearing a first-day cancellation from Las Vegas, Nevada on May 13. What self-respecting Sinatraphile can pass up such a neat piece of memorabilia?
Recommended for: anyone without remastered Sinatra on CD
anyone who is just getting interested in Sinatra's music
anyone looking for a good compilation to listen to in
the car on the way to work.
Not Recommended for: anyone looking for a career-spanning collection
(this one is Reprise only)
anyone who already has Sinatra's albums remastered
and is looking for new material
anyone who has the complete Reprise collection (this
new album is totally redundant, with the exception
of the bonus song).
OLD BLUE EYES SINGING 'MANY' OF HIS VERY BEST! May 13, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Five HUGE Stars!!! The magnificent, multi-Grammy-winning Frank Sinatra is caught singing some of the FINEST popular music and jazz performances of his legendary career, many of which are the DEFINITIVE versions of these songs. Unquestionably one of the GREATEST pop and jazz singers of all time. Jazz? Yes, Sinatra started with swing bands, won many jazz polls over the years, and Count Basie's jazz band (found here twice) was one of his favorites, but he never altered his style: it just fit both categories perfectly, forcing fans in each genre to bend to his singing mastery. And by no means are these tunes ALL of "the best" Sinatra, but it contains 'many' and it arrives, remixed and remastered, on the tenth anniversary of his passing from the new Frank Sinatra Enterprises. In addition, the CD contains a previously unreleased bonus version of the classic "Body and Soul". Some versions of this CD contain a collectable postage stamp and a bonus track on the US Postal Service CD of "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" (available through your post office), and yet another contains a DVD of a live concert, so read the CD technical descriptions carefully.
Some of the 'best of the best' include a stunning, classic "Come Fly With Me", under Nelson Riddle's musical glow and Billy May's baton, with that signature string and brass intro. "The Best Is Yet to Come" is top-drawer Sinatra with Count Basie's Orchestra and his inimitable swinging piano coloring the proceedings. The seldom heard "All My Tomorrows" is pure vocal poetry in a poignant version that is somewhat different from another faster one that I heard years ago. Beyond this "Luck Be a Lady","It Was A Very Good Year" (Grammy), "That's Life", "My Kind of Town", "My Way", the "Theme from New York, New York" and "Strangers in the Night" (double Grammy) are all as some of us will remember them, some with extended endings: outstanding performances with "Ol' Blues Eyes" coming up BIG, over and over. Yes, "Young at Heart", "Nice N' Easy", "Witchcraft", "All the Way", "The Lady Is A Tramp", "I Get A Kick Out of You", and many others are missing which immediately challenges the nebulous title "Nothing But The Best". To those new to Sinatra, the depth of the Sinatra treasure trove from his Capitol Records years await you! Still, this CD captures a cross-section of the legendary Chairman of the Board's greatest performances which are absolutely not to be missed. Remixed and remastered with outstanding sound. My Highest Recommendation. Five CLASSIC Stars!!!!!
(This review is based on an iTunes download.)
'Nothing But The Best" (Again and again!) May 14, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
To mark the 10th anniversary of Sinatra's passing and the issuance of the commemorative FS postage stamp, Warner Rhino gives us "Nothing But The Best,' a collection of Reprise releases which, with a few exceptions, every Sinatra fan has 62 times over again on prior re-issues...
But wait.....there's a few surprises here!--Sinatra afficinado, Charlie Pignone, who produced the package, gives us alternate 'takes' of "Come Fly With Me" and "The Best Is Yet To Come..." as well as the complete take of "Strangers In the Night" with Sinatra scat singing (buh-buh-buh-boo) well after the famous 'doobie doobie doo'..it only amounts to 5 seconds or so, but what you hear was edited out of the famous 1966 single release........
The bonus track of "Body and Soul" overlays Frank's 1984 vocal (intended for "L.A. Is My Lady", but not issued) on a new arrangement by Torrie Zito that was recorded last year, conducted by Frank Jr, replacing the original Quincy Jones chart---it's not top drawer Sinatra, but buffs will want to have it..........
The remastering and packaging is excellent and in this day and age with aging rockers like Rod Stewart and Michael Bolton making fortunes, with limited vocal abilities, trying to sing great standard tunes, it's nice to have "Nothing But the Best" demonstrating what great popular singing is all about...............
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