Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Ring-A-Ding Ding
2. Let's Fall in Love
3. In the Still of the Night
4. Foggy Day
5. Let's Face the Music and Dance
6. You'd Be So Easy to Love
7. Fine Romance
8. Coffee Song (They've Got an Awful Lot of Coffee in Brazil)
9. Be Careful, It's My Heart
10. I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
11. Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart
12. You and the Night and the Music
13. When I Take My Sugar to Tea
14. Last Dance
15. Second Time Around
16. Tina
17. In the Blue of Evening
18. I'll Be Seeing You
19. I'm Getting Sentimental over You
20. Imagination
21. Take Me
22. Without a Song
23. Polka Dots and Moonbeams
24. Daybreak
25. One I Love (Belongs to Somebody Else)

Disc 2:

1. There Are Such Things
2. It's Always You
3. It Started All over Again
4. East of the Sun (And West of the Moon)
5. Curse of an Aching Heart
6. Love Walked In
7. Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone
8. Have You Met Miss Jones?
9. Don't Be That Way
10. I Never Knew
11. Falling in Love With Love
12. It's a Wonderful World
13. Don't Cry Joe (Let Her Go, Let Her Go, Let Her Go)
14. You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You
15. Moonlight on the Ganges
16. Granada
17. As You Desire Me
18. Stardust
19. Yesterdays
20. I Hadn't Anyone Till You
21. It Might as Well Be Spring
22. Prisoner of Love
23. That's All
24. Don't Take Your Love from Me

Disc 3:

1. Misty
2. Come Rain or Come Shine
3. Night and Day
4. All or Nothing at All
5. Pocketful of Miracles
6. Name It and It's Yours
7. Song Is Ended
8. All Alone
9. Charmaine
10. When I Lost You
11. Remember
12. Together
13. Girl Next Door
14. Indiscreet
15. What'll I Do?
16. Oh, How I Miss You Tonight
17. Are You Lonesome Tonight?
18. Come Waltz With Me
19. Everybody's Twistin'
20. Nothing But the Best
21. Boys' Night Out [#]

Disc 4:

1. I'm Beginning to See the Light
2. I Get a Kick Out of You
3. Ain't She Sweet
4. I Love You
5. They Can't Take That Away from Me
6. Love Is Just Around the Corner
7. At Long Last Love
8. Serenade in Blue
9. Goody Goody
10. Don'cha Go 'Way Mad
11. Tangerine
12. Pick Yourself Up
13. If I Had You
14. Very Thought of You
15. I'll Follow My Secret Heart
16. Garden in the Rain
17. London by Night
18. Gypsy
19. Roses of Picardy
20. Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square
21. We'll Meet Again
22. Now Is the Hour
23. We'll Gather Lilacs in the Spring
24. Look of Love
25. I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Disc 5:

1. Nice Work If You Can Get It - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
2. Please Be Kind - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
3. I Won't Dance - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
4. Learnin' the Blues - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
5. I'm Gonna Sit Right Down (And Write Myself a Letter) - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
6. I Only Have Eyes for You - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
7. My Kind of Girl - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
8. Pennies from Heaven - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
9. (Love Is) The Tender Trap - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
10. Looking at the World Thru Rose Colored Glasses - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
11. Me and My Shadow - Sammy Davis, Jr., Frank Sinatra
12. Come Blow Your Horn
13. Call Me Irresponsible
14. Lost in the Stars
15. My Heart Stood Still
16. Ol' Man River
17. This Nearly Was Mine
18. You'll Never Walk Alone
19. I Have Dreamed
20. Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
21. California
22. America the Beautiful

Disc 6:

1. Soliloquy
2. You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me
3. In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning
4. Nancy (With the Laughing Face)
5. Young at Heart
6. Second Time Around
7. All the Way
8. Witchcraft
9. (How Little It Matters) How Little We Know
10. Put Your Dreams Away (For Another Day)
11. I've Got You Under My Skin
12. Oh! What It Seemed to Be
13. We Open in Venice - Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra
14. Old Devil Moon
15. When I'm Not Near the Girl I Love
16. Guys and Dolls - Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra
17. I've Never Been in Love Before
18. So in Love (Reprise) - Frank Sinatra, Keely Smith
19. Twin Soliloquies - Frank Sinatra, Keely Smith
20. Some Enchanted Evening
21. Some Enchanted Evening (Reprise) - Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra

Disc 7:

1. Luck Be a Lady
2. Fugue for Tinhorns - Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra
3. Oldest Established (Permanent Floating Crap Game in New York) - Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra
4. Here's to the Losers
5. Love Isn't Just for the Young
6. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
7. Talk to Me Baby
8. Stay With Me (Main Theme from the Cardinal)
9. Early American - Frank Sinatra, Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians
10. House I Live In - Frank Sinatra, Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians
11. You're a Lucky Fellow, Mr. Smith - Frank Sinatra, Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians
12. Way You Look Tonight
13. Three Coins in the Fountain
14. Swinging on a Star
15. Continental
16. In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening
17. It Might as Well Be Spring
18. Secret Love
19. Moon River
20. Days of Wine and Roses
21. Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
22. Let Us Break Bread Together - Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians
23. You Never Had It So Good - Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians

Disc 8:

1. I Can't Believe I'm Losing You
2. My Kind of Town
3. I Like to Lead When I Dance
4. Style - Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra
5. Mister Booze - Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra
6. Don't Be a Do-Badder (Finale) - Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra
7. Best Is Yet to Come - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
8. I Wanna Be Around - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
9. I Believe in You - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
10. Fly Me to the Moon - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
11. Hello, Dolly! - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
12. Good Life - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
13. I Wish You Love - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
14. I Can't Stop Loving You - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
15. More [Theme from Mondo Cane] - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
16. Wives and Lovers - Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
17. Old-Fashioned Christmas - Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians, Frank Sinatra, Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians
18. I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day - Fred Waring, Frank Sinatra, Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians
19. Little Drummer Boy - Fred Waring, Frank Sinatra, Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians
20. Go Tell It on the Mountain - Bing Crosby, Fred Waring, Frank Sinatra, Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians
21. We Wish You the Merriest - Bing Crosby, Fred Waring, Frank Sinatra, Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians
22. Softly, As I Leave You
23. Then Suddenly Love
24. Since Marie Has Left Paree [#]
25. Available

Disc 9:

1. Pass Me By
2. Emily
3. Dear Heart
4. Somewhere in Your Heart
5. Any Time at All
6. Don't Wait Too Long
7. September Song
8. Last Night When We Were Young
9. Hello, Young Lovers
10. I See It Now
11. When the Wind Was Green
12. Once upon a Time
13. How Old Am I?
14. It Was a Very Good Year
15. Man in the Looking Glass
16. This Is All I Ask
17. It Gets Lonely Early
18. September of My Years
19. Tell Her (You Love Her Each Day)
20. When Somebody Loves You
21. Forget Domani
22. Ev'rybody Has the Right to Be Wrong! (At Least Once)
23. I'll Only Miss Her When I Think of Her - Laurindo Almeida, Frank Sinatra
24. Golden Moment

Disc 10:

1. Come Fly With Me
2. I'll Never Smile Again
3. Moment to Moment
4. Love and Marriage
5. Moon Song
6. Moon Love
7. Moon Got in My Eyes
8. Moonlight Serenade
9. Reaching for the Moon
10. I Wished on the Moon
11. Moonlight Becomes You
12. Moonlight Mood
13. Oh, You Crazy Moon
14. Moon Was Yellow
15. Strangers in the Night
16. My Baby Just Cares for Me
17. Yes Sir, That's My Baby
18. You're Driving Me Crazy!
19. Most Beautiful Girl in the World
20. Summer Wind
21. All or Nothing at All
22. Call Me
23. On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)
24. Downtown

Disc 11:

1. That's Life
2. Give Her Love
3. What Now, My Love?
4. Somewhere My Love
5. Winchester Cathedral
6. I Will Wait for You
7. You're Gonna Hear from Me
8. Sand and Sea
9. Impossible Dream
10. Baubles, Bangles and Beads - Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra
11. I Concentrate on You - Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra
12. Dindi
13. Change Partners - Frank Sinatra, Al Viola
14. Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars (Corcovado)
15. If You Never Come to Me
16. Girl from Ipanema - Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra
17. Meditation (Meditação)
18. Once I Loved (O Amor en Paz) - Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra
19. How Insensitive (Insensatez) - Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra
20. Drinking Again
21. Somethin' Stupid - Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra
22. You Are There
23. World We Knew (Over and Over)
24. Born Free
25. This Is My Love

Disc 12:

1. This Is My Song
2. Don't Sleep in the Subway
3. Some Enchanted Evening
4. This Town
5. Younger Than Springtime
6. All I Need Is the Girl - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
7. Yellow Days - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
8. Indian Summer - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
9. Come Back to Me - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
10. Poor Butterfly - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
11. Sunny - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
12. I Like the Sunrise - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
13. Follow Me - Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
14. My Way of Life
15. Cycles
16. Whatever Happened to Christmas?
17. Twelve Days of Christmas - Frank Sinatra, Sinatra Family, Nancy Sinatra, Tina Sinatra
18. Bells of Christmas (Greensleeves) - Frank Sinatra, Sinatra Family, Nancy Sinatra, Tina Sinatra
19. I Wouldn't Trade Christmas - Frank Sinatra, Sinatra Family, Nancy Sinatra, Tina Sinatra
20. Christmas Waltz

Disc 13:

1. Blue Lace
2. Star!
3. Gentle on My Mind
4. By the Time I Get to Phoenix
5. Little Green Apples
6. Moody River
7. Pretty Colors
8. Rain in My Heart
9. Wandering
10. Both Sides Now
11. My Way
12. One Note Samba (Samba de Uma Nota So) - Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra
13. Don't Ever Go Away (Por Causa de Voce)
14. Wave
15. Bonito
16. Someone to Light up My Life
17. Desafinado [#] - Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra
18. Agua de Beber - Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra
19. Songs of the Sabiá
20. This Happy Madness (Estrada Branca) - Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra
21. Triste

Disc 14:

1. All My Tomorrows
2. Didn't We
3. Day in the Life of a Fool
4. Yesterday
5. If You Go Away
6. Watch What Happens
7. For Once in My Life
8. Mrs. Robinson
9. Hallelujah, I Love Her So
10. I've Been to Town
11. Empty Is
12. Single Man
13. Lonesome Cities
14. Beautiful Strangers
15. Man Alone
16. Love's Been Good to Me
17. Out Beyond the Window
18. Night
19. Some Traveling Music
20. From Promise to Promise
21. Man Alone (Reprise)
22. In the Shadow of the Moon
23. Forget to Remember
24. Goin' Out of My Head

Disc 15:

1. I Would Be in Love (Anyway)
2. Train
3. She Says
4. Lady Day
5. Watertown
6. What's Now Is Now
7. Goodbye (She Quietly Says)
8. What a Funny Girl (You Used to Be)
9. Elizabeth
10. Michael and Peter
11. For a While
12. Lady Day
13. I Will Drink the Wine
14. Bein' Green
15. My Sweet Lady
16. Sunrise in the Morning
17. I'm Not Afraid
18. Something
19. Leaving on a Jet Plane
20. Close to You
21. Feelin' Kinda Sunday - Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra
22. Life's a Trippy Thing - Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra
23. Game Is Over [#]

Disc 16:

1. Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) [#]
2. You Will Be My Music
3. Noah
4. Nobody Wins
5. Hurt Doesn't Go Away
6. Winners
7. Let Me Try Again [Laisse Moi le Temps]
8. Walk Away [#]
9. Send in the Clowns
10. There Used to Be a Ballpark
11. You're So Right (For What's Wrong in My Life)
12. Dream Away
13. Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
14. I'm Gonna Make It All the Way
15. Empty Tables
16. If
17. Summer Knows
18. Sweet Caroline
19. You Turned My World Around
20. What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?
21. Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree
22. Satisfy Me One More Time

Disc 17:

1. You Are the Sunshine of My Life
2. Just as Though You Were Here
3. Everything Happens to Me [#]
4. Anytime (I'll Be There)
5. Only Couple on the Floor
6. I Believe I'm Gonna Love You
7. Saddest Thing of All
8. Baby Just Like You
9. Christmas Memories
10. I Sing the Songs (I Write the Songs)
11. Empty Tables - Bill Miller, Frank Sinatra
12. Send in the Clowns - Bill Miller, Frank Sinatra
13. Best I Ever Had - Sam Butera, Frank Sinatra
14. Stargazer - Bill Butera, Frank Sinatra
15. Dry Your Eyes
16. Like a Sad Song
17. I Love My Wife
18. Night and Day
19. All or Nothing at All [#]
20. Everybody Ought to Be in Love
21. Nancy (With the Laughing Face)
22. Emily
23. Linda [#]
24. Sweet Lorraine

Disc 18:

1. Barbara
2. I Had the Craziest Dream
3. It Had to Be You
4. You and Me (We Wanted It All)
5. MacArthur Park
6. Summer Me, Winter Me
7. That's What God Looks Like to Me
8. For the Good Times - Eileen Farrell, Frank Sinatra
9. Love Me Tender
10. Just the Way You Are
11. Song Sung Blue
12. Isn't She Lovely? [#]
13. My Shining Hour
14. All of You
15. More Than You Know
16. Song Is You
17. But Not for Me
18. Street of Dreams
19. They All Laughed
20. Let's Face the Music and Dance
21. Theme from New York, New York
22. Something

Disc 19:

1. What Time Does the Next Miracle Leave? - Diana Lee, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Whitman
2. World War None!
3. Future - Beverly Jenkins, Frank Sinatra
4. Future (Continued): I've Been There
5. Future (Conclusion): Song Without Words - Beverly Jenkins, Loulie Jean Norman, Frank Sinatra
6. Before the Music Ends (Finale)
7. Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)
8. Everything Happens to Me [#]
9. Medley: The Gal That Got Away/It Never Entered My Mind [Medley]
10. Thanks for the Memory
11. I Loved Her
12. Long Night
13. South to a Warmer Place
14. Say Hello
15. Good Thing Going

Disc 20:

1. Monday Morning Quarterback
2. Hey Look, No Cryin'
3. To Love a Child - Nikka Costa, Frank Sinatra
4. Love Makes Us Whatever We Want to Be [#]
5. Searching
6. Here's to the Band
7. All the Way Home [#]
8. It's Sunday - Tony Mottola, Frank Sinatra
9. L.A. Is My Lady - Quincy Jones & His Orchestra, , Frank Sinatra
10. Until the Real Thing Comes Along - Quincy Jones & His Orchestra, , Frank Sinatra
11. After You've Gone - Quincy Jones & His Orchestra, , Frank Sinatra
12. Best of Everything - Quincy Jones & His Orchestra, , Frank Sinatra
13. It's All Right With Me - Quincy Jones & His Orchestra, , Frank Sinatra
14. Hundred Years from Today - Quincy Jones & His Orchestra, , Frank Sinatra
15. How Do You Keep the Music Playing? - Quincy Jones, Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra
16. Teach Me Tonight - Quincy Jones & His Orchestra, , Frank Sinatra
17. If I Should Lose You - Oliver Jones, , Frank Sinatra
18. Stormy Weather - Quincy Jones, Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra
19. Mack the Knife - Hank Jones, Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra
20. Girls I Never Kissed [#] - Quincy Jones & His Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
21. Only One to a Customer [#] - Quincy Jones & His Orchestra, Frank Sinatra
22. My Foolish Heart [#] - Quincy Jones & His Orchestra, Jack Sheldon, Frank Sinatra

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18287 in Music
• Released on: 1998-10-20
• Number of discs: 20
• Format: Box set

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Customer Reviews

Truly a must have for any Sinatra fan!
To truly be a Sinatra aficionado you must have this 20 CD set which comprises everything done at Reprise. ( Note - I would suggest this set for only hardcore Sinatra fans who already have most of the individual CDs.) I bought this set initially because I had given up trying to get all the individual CDs ( after 5 years of trying I could not find `All Alone', `Great Songs from Great Britain', `I Remember Tommy', and `The World We Knew' anywhere ). But I was amazed at the amount of new songs in this collection. Before I praise the heck out of this collection, I must warn of some real trash that is unfortunately included. First, a few tracks from the `World We Knew' album. `Don't Sleep in the Subway', `Born Free', `This is My Song' and a new version of `Some Enchanted Evening' ( the worst version of this song ever recorded ) are horrible. Why was he recording this stuff ? These songs are not even worthy enough for Sinatra to be humming them. The awful arrangements by Ernie Freeman and H.B Barnum do not help either. What a waste! Even worse is `Everybody's Twistn'. Two words: indescribably awful. However, `Life's A Trippy Thing' a duet with Nancy is unbearable and repulsive. It is a terrible ruin of a song. Sinatra's early `70s retirement occurred soon after this song was released. I would retire too if my name was associated with this. Another drawback - both live albums `Sinatra at the Sands' and `The Main Event' are not included. So what are the reasons to fork over hundreds of dollars for this set? First and foremost, every Reprise album is in here. No more running around North America trying to find rare CDs like `All Alone' ( which is excellent ) or `Great Songs from Great Britain'. Furthermore, the collection has longer versions of what you would get on the individual CDs. This especially improves the Ellington & Sinatra and `LA is My Lady' albums with longer and far superior tracks compared to the tracks on the individual CDs. Or how about some great tracks from the Reprise Repertoire Theater series including duets with Rosemary Clooney `Some Enchanted Evening' ( the finest version of this song ever recorded ), Keely Smith `So In Love', and Dean Martin `Guys And Dolls'. Likewise, they are two underrated duets that are only available in this package. `Style', a phenomenal duet with Dean Martin and Bing Crosby, from `Robin and the Seven Hoods'. `Me And My Shadow', a duet with Sammy Davis Jr., is just plain magic. Other hidden gems - not available anywhere else to my knowledge - include: `Like A Sad Song', `My Foolish Heart' ( recorded in 1988 but Sinatra does sound 30 years younger ) , `Stay With Me', `Since Marie Has Left Paree', `In The Shadow Of The Moon', `Dry Your Eyes' , `Nothing But The Best', and `The Boy's Night Out'. I was unaware these songs existed before and was pleasantly surprised when I heard them. By the way, the `70s disco versions of `All or Nothing at All' and `Night and Day' are actually fun and an entertaining change of pace. Notwithstanding, they are three tracks that makes this collection a must. I had never heard them ( or of them ) before this collection. They are among the greatest songs ever recorded by Sinatra. I'm baffled as to why they have never appeared on any Reprise `Greatest Hits' or other compilation CDs issues. First, `I Like To Lead When I Dance' a song that was recorded for `Robin and the Seven Hoods' but failed to make the film. Why ? This masterpiece was written by Cahn & Van Heusen, there is a remarkable arrangement by Nelson Riddle, and Sinatra sounds amazing. This song deserves to be among Sinatra's classics. Second, the aptly titled `The Game Is Over'. Recorded before Sinatra early `70s short retirement, the song is lovely. A soft little John Denver tune, Sinatra uses it as a canvass to express emotions to the extent which he had only done with `Angel Eyes' from `Only the Lonely'. It is a shame Sinatra never released it, it surely would have become one of his trademark songs. Finally, `Forget To Remember' is what music is about to me. This is music as art. Everything is perfect: Don Costa's arrangement, Teddy Randazzo's lyrics, and Sinatra's glorious voice putting it all together to create a hauntingly beautiful portrait. I can't say enough about this song. It brought me to tears, I would have paid the couple of a hundred of dollars for this song alone. Truly a must have for any Sinatra fan!

Amazing
This is a mammoth collection of every studio recording Sinatra made for Reprise. Twenty cd's and a book. With this much music there are several clunkers..Sinatra's interpretations of the pop hits of the day, even though "Its Now or Never" and "Something" add a whole new dimension to these songs. Songs you know well and some stuff you haven't heard in years or at all.Frank Sinatra is the greatest singer of all time and nobody interpereted a lyric better. Arguably his Capital output was the highlight of his recording career,but he took so many chances at Reprise(after all he owned the label)and while there are some misses, the hits certainly outnumber the filler stuff.I just bought this collection and I've been listening to a cd per day. To hear all this music in chronological order really gives you the depth and scope of Sinatra through the years.This may be the greatest CD ever. I know Capitol has their singles collections and all the CD's he did are available, but I would love to see a "complete Capitol studio recordings" collection.In summation, an incredible set. Music that has stood and will stand the test of time.

The complete Sinatra Reprise: almost perfection
Francis Albert Sinatra was a lot of things, some good and some bad, but firstly and foremost he was a singer. Over a 55-year career he went from being a skinny mama's boy to the undispuded champion of popular vocalists. If we define popular music as everything except classical and purely indigenous folk musics, Frank Sinatra was the best singer of popular music, of either gender and any race or nationality, at least in the English language,in human history to date. He set out to sing the best entertainment and musical theatre songs he could, the best way that he could imagine them sung. He trained himself to sing to a standard elsewhere found only in operatic music, but with very different goals: he made being a microphone singer from a pejorative to an accolade, developing his lung capacity to emulate circular-breathing jazz brasswind players in sustained notes and passages rather than for volume. He leveraged his early popular mania with teenage, male-starved "bobbysoxers" into having the pull with record companies and recording resources to execute his ideas-great songs (new or decades-old, but well-crafted and with melodies that held up and intelligent lyrics) with great arrangements played by great musicians and recorded (in good rooms!) with state of the art but essentially simple equipment by professionals- a situation that seems quaint today with Pro Tools and sequencing software available to high-schoolers.

Sinatra's career can be largely divided into four phases: the first being his band singer work with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, his solo debut on Columbia Records, his 50's departure-over the efforts of Mitch Miller to make him record what he (usually correctly) considered dreck-to Capitol Records, and finally his founding of his own label, Reprise, on which his later career was spent. (His last efforts, the commercially successful but musically dubious "Duets" pair, returned him to Capitol, albeit with production by Phil Ramone and heavy doses of "vocal Viagra" in the form of pitch correcting autotune plug-ins for Pro Tools: by that point extensive consolidation of record labels made the point somewhat moot.)

While many Sinatra purists will argue for starting a serious Sinatra collection with the Columbia and Capitol box sets, I would start with this one and work backwards. Frank's Reprise studio career extends from December of 1960 to June of 1988, across seven U.S. presidents and the peaks of the careers of Marilyn Monroe and Madonna. The Reprise era starts at roughly Sinatra's peak period in every sense and continues through what is really the end of his recording career. Along the way, he records a good percentage of his best work, faces the tragedies and adversities of his life, and exits stage right with head unbowed.

Here, across twenty CDs, is the entire released studio work of Frank Sinatra on the Reprise label. Much, arguably most, of it is magnificent. He revisits many if not most of his favorite standards from the Columbia and Capitol eras, adds a few new ones, and records dozens of contemporary songs and "elegant novelties" from both old standby writers (Cahn and Van Heusen, as always, leading the pack) and then-current pop tunesmiths and Top 40 writer-performers. Simon and Garfunkel (admittedly to their chagrin,as I'll expand on later), John Denver, Neil Diamond, Sonny Bono, Joni Mitchell, Bob Gaudio and Jake Holmes (the writing component of Frankie Valli's Four Seasons), Beatles George Harrison and the Lennon-McCartney pair,and others find themselves alongside Harold Arlen, Cole Porter and Jerome Kern.

A lot of derision has been directed toward's Frank's performances of these songs, much of it no more than mean-spirited drivel. To be sure, it doesn't always work: Frank openly treats Tony Hatch's "Downtown" (made famous by Petula Clark, and rightly so) with contempt-he actually sings "bleech!" at the end!-and is a fish out of water with some of the Lennon-McCartney songs, and even what should be an easy safe hit with the then-retro "Winchester Cathedral" winds up being not a disaster but not quite up to the Rudy Vallee-evoking New Vaudeville Band hit.

And yet-some of these songs are home runs by any standard. Harrison's "Something", which Frank records not once but twice, was slammed vitriolically by rock critics, but when Harrison's own performances of the song started reflecting Frank's, the singer/songwriter's ultimate accolade made them look foolish, and rightly so. You stick around, Jack, it might show.

Special mention has to be made, here and now, of one of Sinatra's so called "bons mot", the notorious Mrs.Robinson. Sending critics such as the notorious Christgau (who would be the biggest idiot in the New York music literary scene if Will Friedwald weren't so utterly persistent and ingenious at stealing the title from beneath his nose) into fits of apoplexy, this song deserves its own full-length essay in and of itself. Suffice it to say it's Sinatra's response, and backhanded apologia, even, to a series of events starting with the Wrong Door Raid and is one of the very rare genuinely funny events of Sinatra's entire musical universe. It's a classy swinging ringer-dinger and a great sendup of the "seriousness" around the Paul Simons and Bob Dylans in the sixties, and simultaneously lets Frank have a little sophisticated adult fun at the expense of the mania around "The Graduate". The first time I heard it, I broke out laughing and couldn't stop for half an hour.

Accompanying the 20 CDs in two mini-albums reminiscent of the bound books in which shellac 78 rpm discs were sold, is a small hardbound cloth cover book which I have in front of me, invaluable in writing this. It contains interviews with Bill Miller and Al Caiola, and pieces by Wilfrid Sheed, Stan Cornyn, and XM Radio "Frank's Place" DJ Jonathan Schwartz. It's a good read, although the student of recording science will regret the lack of technical and room details, the armchair arranger and discographer will miss the lack of personnel rosters on the sessions-almost all of which still exist-and the photo buffs will miss many key photos and regret that others are rendered in a pastel shade. (How one could not use William Claxton's classic photo of Ray Charles, Marilyn Monroe and Jimmy Durante at a 1961 session is beyond any earthly accounting.)

Although is the single must-have compilation to all serious Sinatraphiles, above all others, I have to give it only four stars as opposed to five. For one thing, it's not totally complete: while it does include all the released studio sides, there are still many known and unknown things which never have seen legitimate-or any-release. Some of these are not really up to the standard, but others are, beyond dispute. Also, there are some live releases, such as 1965's "Live at the Sands with Count Basie" and 1974's "The Main Event" (with a notorious Howard Cosell introduction) which are part and parcel of the Sinatra oeuvre.

More seriously, many of the extant master tapes of some of these sessions are of such quality that Compact Disk does not do them justice. I have had the privilege-how and when are not for me to disclose at this time- of hearing a small section of these tracks on the very master tapes some of this set was mastered from, on a really first rate high end system hooked to an Ampex deck with Boyk mechanical ministrations and the notorious de Paravicini electronics. Hearing these CDs, vintage U.S. release LPs, and the original tapes successively made it clear that the LP's were somewhat closer in some ways than the CDs to the tapes, and that the tapes were still better to the extent that a future remaster to SACD or DVD-Audio, provided that ADC's of sufficient quality are available, holds the promise of sufficiently better sonics that hardcore audiophiles may well find themselves buying this music yet one more time. Three hundred dollars is not a colossal sum to most of the really serious audiophiles, but if you are buying this as a lifetime investment you may want to factor this in to your purchasing decisions.

On the other hand, life is too short to wait forever for the better deal. In the long run, buying this set upfront can be a big saving of time and money over piecemeal album purchases, and the case and book are pretty and functional (although they will get dirty easily over time and are not easily cleanable.) I have not regretted the purchase of this set-at more than the current listed Amazon price-once during the three years I've had it.