Swing: Michael Bublé and Sinatra

I am typing up a list of my vinyl collection to put on a page on this site. While doing so I, of course, looked at each of my albums. One of them is a Sinatra record, from 1961, and it didn’t have a date on it at all, so I went searching the web. I found the date right away, but then spent some time reading and looking at a few other Sinatra things, and of course that sparked a new idea.

Michael Bublé is a singer whom I have only had any contact with via the Starbuck commercial he’s in on TV. It’s one of their drinks, frappa-whatever … I care not one whit about Starbucks stuff (I despise their coffee, for one thing, which is more than a whit, but that’s my only whit about them, the actual coffee of their’s in the malls, ick, no further thought of them I give.) So Sinatra inspired me to look up that commercial. I couldn’t easily find anything on the coffee shops website. I found it easily by searching google for the name of the song and Starbucks together.

That’s my introduction to the singer. I am no newbie to Swing or Big Band, Sinatra and others. I grew up loving it. I listened to the only station on air that played it in my teens. It was an AM station. I won a beach towel in some contest from them. I was 16 then, and the host of the show was amazed to find a fan so young listening. Anyhow, that was a fun time. I loved Sinatra, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, and many others, those in particular.

I didn’t have many 33 1/3 rpm’s of the stuff like that which I loved. Someone at the condo my dad worked at died and he got to bring home stuff from their storage locker. I have the the set of records still, but they aren’t modern things. Grand 78 rpm’s thick and easily broken, and I haven’t a player to spin them on. My old record player that had that speed, my DH tossed it out one day some years ago, it was on a Panasonic compact stereo. EEEEEKKK! I wasn’t happy when I found that out. Anyhow, to my shame, I allowed him to also put those records in the garage — now I do not know their condition. They are just stacked out there up high on a bookcase. I know some are broken, I don’t recall when I found that out, but some clean-out job out there sometime I knew that and I don’t want to explore further, yet.

So anyhow, long ago I used to play those records, each side of the record had one song. Good stuff from that Big Band era. Sigh. Other than that, I used to listen on the radio sometimes, or often, depending on my mood. I have eclectic taste in music, so it’s hard dividing myself up to music styles and musicians. I’ve neglected the Swing stuff for a long time.

I have that one Sinatra record, and I recently got a new LP-Player, it’s been a very long time since I’ve spun any records. It’s been heaven to hear some of them again. I just got through all the records in my listing them today (I don’t have a ton, just a good amount) and Sinatra’s Swing Session!!! was there. I’ll give it a spin later.

So this is what sparked the idea to find who sings in that commercial, and I found out. He has two CD’s out. Now I have something to add to my shopping list. 🙂 I found one site that had a little interview with him, and it talked about ‘why did he do that starbucks stuff, and other things’ … and I can just say, if not for that, how else would I, a person such as I am myself, have found out about him? Now he has a new fan he wouldn’t have otherwise had.

I have seen the commercial in question several times, but not that often. I have loved it. So it’s not that I didn’t think of that singer as a singer before, but I wasn’t sure what was up about it. Sometimes people aren’t who they seem on TV, lipsync to someone else, etc. This Michael Bublé turned out to be the real deal from the commercial, that was him, he does great with swing jazz … and fits the look as well. He’s been in a few movies, apparently, but I’ve not seen the ones that wikipedia lists him as being in.

Check out his site linked above. You can listen to several songs/pieces of songs automatically, if you have speakers connected, and turned on, volume up, on your computer.

Here’s the wikipedia link to Michael Bublé too.