Details

At first glance, Sammy Davis, Jr.’s It’s All Over But The Swingin’ might appear as nothing more than a warmed-over Frank Sinatra torch-song concept album wannabe from The Chairman’s greatest acolyte. After all, Sinatra’s lamp-post from In The Wee Small Hours and Songs For Young Lovers is right there on the cover, the album was recorded just two months after Frank put the finishing touches on an album of despairing ballads himself (Where Are You?), the orchestra personnel consisted of many of Frank’s regular studio musicians, and Sinatra’s name appears no fewer than four times in the LP’s liner notes.

But appearances can be deceiving. Instead, this brilliant album – with 12 sides exploring the losing part of ‘loving and losing’ – is top-drawer Sammy Davis, Jr., has top-rate arrangements from Morty Stevens and Jack Pleis, and utilises top-notch jazz musicians like Nelson Riddle regulars Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison (trumpet), Harry Klee (flute), Joe Comfort (bass) and Alvin Stoller (drums). The song selection is particularly strong, featuring the best of The Great American Songbook – without being derivative of Sammy’s idol (most of the songs Sinatra had not recorded, and five of them Sinatra never recorded).

Unlike Where Are You?, which melded Sinatra’s regret with Gordon Jenkins’ lush string orchestra, It’s All Over But The Swingin’ matches Sammy’s melancholy with a real jazz attitude. It features some outstanding solos, keeps the few strings largely in the background, and plays with tempo changes throughout. The most authoritative writer on jazz drumming, Burt Korall, highlights this variety in the LP’s original liner notes, saying “the interpretations herein vary as to tempo, degree of intensity and colour”.

Across the album, Sammy regularly sings while accompanied only by the guitar of Bob Bain or Tony Rizzi – a musical device to which Sammy was clearly partial, and which would anticipate Davis’s next Decca album.

Uninspired facsimile this is not. In fact, it is one of Sammy Davis, Jr.’s greatest albums, and it has been said that Sammy himself considered it one of his favourites.