Thanks to Doug for this personal story!

On December 12th, 1995, Sinatra: 80 Years My Way, an all-star prime time TV special, aired on ABC from coast-to-coast. The show had actually been taped weeks earlier at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, featuring a huge cast of Sinatra associates and seemingly random names pulled out of a hat: Don Rickles and Tony Bennett, sure, but Johnny Depp and Salt-N-Pepa? The show went on forever, with appearances by Ray Charles, Bruce Springsteen and then, the most unlikely pairing in show business history, malaprop comic Norm Crosby leading in to Bob Dylan.

After the taping, Mrs. Sinatra invited a small group of A-plus listers back to chateau Blue Eyes in Beverly Hills; Springsteen, Dylan, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme gathered around the piano, singing and drinking and smoking until the sun came up.

Meanwhile, just a few miles over the hill in the San Fernando Valley, the Frank Sinatra Orchestra gathered for drinks at the Money Tree, a tiny piano bar in Toluca Lake favored by working musicians for decades. One by one, Sinatra's silver-haired, tuxedo-clad sidemen wandered out to their cars to fetch a trombone, saxophone, or trumpet or flute. For the next hour and a half, a spectacular spontaneous jam session ensued, featuring a collective 10,000 years of music history. I was there by pure happenstance.

It's hard not to imagine Frank would have much rather been at the Money Tree with the cats.

-- Doug McIntyre

Author, Frank's Shadow, in bookstores, July, 2023