Sinatra Jobim

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 1969

Labels: Reprise Records, Stereomaster

Looking to recreate the magic of the first session, some of Sinatra's less mainstream efforts made after the success of that first Sinatra-Jobim release simply didn't perform well, and anxieties drove the creation of this second hybrid. Jobim's charts were slightly more complex this time around & new arranger Eumir Deodato lent a different touch. On top of this, Sinatra's album sales had slumped & his commercial dynasty was slipping, eventually leading to his retirement in 1971. In short, the ten songs that made up this ill-fated second Sinatra-Jobim effort never actually saw release. The recordings were shelved. The project aborted.

To give more context, the Sinatra-Jobim album was of course finalised right down to the mixing & mastering & even the cover art was chosen. The scheduled photo for the album was a shot of Frank leaning on the back of a Greyhound bus, taken from the same mid-February '69 photo session which produced the artwork for the albums My Way and A Man Alone. The LP reached the acetate stage & a limited number of 8-track tape editions were quickly fixed up & released to market. This recording was never commercially released in any other format. For whatever reason, a recall was issued by Warner in the form of a memo ordering the destruction of all 3,500 of the 8-track cassettes that had been manufactured for release. Warner sent this memo to all retailers and distributors of the unsold copies, and even the sold ones! There are fewer than FIVE copies of the 8-track release known to still exist, and an auction way back in 2006 achieved a record sum of $4550 for one surviving copy. Acetates or test pressings for the proposed LP are reportedly so scarce that the owner of one such rarity told Goldmine Magazine in a 1991 article that he wouldn't part with his for less than $5,000 even then. As far as we are aware, no examples of the acetate have ever surfaced at online auction.

As this 1969 album got cancelled, the track 'Sabiá' was released on Lady Day in 1970 and seven tracks were released on Sinatra & Company in 1971. Later the track 'Bonita' was released on the compilation Portrait Of Sinatra: Forty Songs From The Life Of A Man in 1977 and finally the remaining track, 'Desafinado' was released in The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings in 1995. On the 1979 vinyl double album Sinatra-Jobim Sessions all the tracks from this 1969 session, except 'Desafinado', were also included (as was some studio chatter on the beginning of 'Samba De Uma Nota Só').

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