Since this weekend’s music picks are by Laura Ainsworth and include Frank Sinatra Jr., let’s take a look back at “Huckabee” on TBN when Joe Piscopo shared his spot-on tribute to his idol Frank Sinatra with “New York, New York.”
Weekend Music Picks
by HP writer/jazz singer Laura Ainsworth
It’s been a while since I chose the music, so I thought I would share some favorite artists whom I’ll always associate with my late father, Bill Ainsworth. He was a sax and clarinet prodigy, a genius big band arranger, and my #1 musical inspiration. He used to play in the Dallas Fairmont Hotel’s elegant Venetian Room, backing great showroom icons like Tony Bennett, Steve and Eydie, Tom Jones, Mel Torme and George Shearing, and Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. Tuesdays were slow, so the band’s families got in free, and my mother would take me to see him backing these great artists, which explains my musical tastes. Here are some for whom I have specific memories.
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My dad was friends with Frank Sinatra Jr., whom he considered to be an underrated singer, and he was harsh judge of singers. Whenever Frank played Dallas, he made sure my dad was in the band. After my dad’s passing, I discovered a letter in a shoebox from Frank Jr., raving about how great the band sounded in his last Venetian Room stand and saying he’d enclosed a cassette taped off the mixing board. That’s all I found: the letter, but no cassette. I’d give anything to hear it. But I can still share this tune by Frank Jr., the swinging title track from his 2006 album, “That Face.”
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My dad, who was the vocal group leader for classic jingle sessions, loved the Swingle Singers, a pioneering vocal group who performed intricate arrangements of popular songs and classical pieces using only their voices as instruments. He played their records every weekend, and their complicated, dissonant harmonies drove my mom a little crazy! But my dad would try to spread the word about them to everyone he knew.
He also loved The Manhattan Transfer, as did I, and backed them at the Fairmont in their early nostalgia act phase. During their recent farewell tour, I visited with them backstage and the great Janis Siegel told me she remembered a member of the Venetian Room Orchestra who turned her on to the Swingle Singers, which had an influence on their expansion into vocalese and more intricate vocal jazz. I told her that HAD to have been my father! Here’s The Manhattan Transfer doing their acapella version of “So In Love.”
- I’ll take any excuse to share my pick as the greatest female singer of all time, Ella Fitzgerald. My dad backed her at the Fairmont when she was very old. He said she would spend all day in her room watching soap operas, take the elevator down to the showroom and be brilliant for an hour, then go back up to her room and her soaps. My most cherished possession is the copy of her “Irving Berlin Songbook” LP that she autographed to him.
Here’s her classic version of the Jerome Kern standard, “All the Things You Are.”
And while I am terrified to follow Ella Fitzgerald, here’s mine from my album “You Asked For It,” to show you how much she influenced me and how we paid homage to her in the arrangement.
It’s the weekend, and time to see if the writers at the Babylon Bee were able to think any fake news that was more absurd than the real news.
https://babylonbee.com/news/french-frantically-search-rioting-mob-for-someone-to-surrender-to
https://babylonbee.com/news/nation-saddened-to-learn-iran-may-not-actually-nuke-la
Televangelist Jim Bakker died Monday at 86 of undisclosed causes. He had suffered a stroke in 2020.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/jim-bakker-ptl-club-televangelist-fmr-husband-tammy-faye-dead-86
A pioneer in Christian television, Bakker was the first host of CBN’s “The 700 Club” before launching his own venture, the PTL Satellite Network, where he and then-wife Tammy Faye Bakker hosted its top show, “The PTL Club.” They also created the Heritage USA theme park. Their empire came crashing down in 1987 after Bakker admitted to an affair with church clerk Jessica Hahn, and he was convicted of financial crimes and sent to prison. During that time, Tammy Faye divorced him. She died of cancer in 2007.
After his release, Bakker returned to TV. He remarried, and he and his second wife Lori adopted five children. We extend our prayers and condolences to his family.
Thank you for reading!
