Part 2 - In the Beginning: Frank Sinatra with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra
"Sinatra had the ability to spin and hold a melody line, thereby making a musical totality of a song rather than a series of vaguely connected phrases.”
© Introduction Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Where Sinatra, after Bing Crosby, was most original—and it had a great deal to do with the shaping of his mature style—was in his use of the microphone. It was his constant companion. Even as a young singer doing obscure and ill-paid club dates in his native North New Jersey, he carried his own sound system with him. One remembers him from his earliest photos, "the hands tightly gripping the microphone," as E. J. Kahn noted, "as if too frail to stand alone." Frank did not need the mike to hold him up. He may not even have needed it in order to make himself heard. To him it was, or became, an instrument on which he played as an instrumentalist plays a saxophone, or a trombone—in other words, an electronic extension of his own vocal instrument.
That, at least, is the way he thought of it. I have heard Tony Bennett speak of it in the same way. As Frank and Tony saw it, where Bing Crosby had seemed to be overheard by the microphone, they played, or sang, on it, developing great skill in moving toward it, or away from it, learning to turn away when snatching a breath, avoiding popping consonants, and so on. With the development of the hand mike with lead wire, they could make the mike do the moving and use it more effectively than ever.
I know that they, and doubtless other singers, think of the mike as an instrument. They may be deceiving themselves. I tend to think that the mike, because it hears more acutely than the unassisted ear, simply revealed to them more of their own vocal instrument than had ever been revealed to singers before. The mike picks up otherwise unheard minutiae of the sounds made by the passage of breath over the vocal cords. A singer as sensitive to timbre as Sinatra is hears them, knows instinctively what to do with them, and learns to create and control them. It may not, in other words, be so much a matter of "playing" upon the mike as of being guided by the mike's "ear," of learning to hear as the mike hears, and of producing the voice and shaping the phrase accordingly.
This would help to explain some singularities in Sinatra's vocal-ism. He never had any formal training and never wanted any, just as he never learned to read music or wanted to. He knew from the beginning that he had something unique to offer. He didn't want to jeopardize that something by conventional shooting. He was probably right. As a vocalist to, he ‘did it his way.’”
Henry Pleasants, The Great American Popular Singers [1974]
“[When he first recorded with Tommy Dorsey] Sinatra is understandably still a bit shaky and not as poised as he was in later years, but his basic talents shine through unequivocally, most importantly in his innate ability to spin and hold a melody line, thereby making a musical totality of a song rather than a series of vaguely connected phrases.”
Gunther Schuller [Emphasis mine], quoted in William Ruhlmann’s booklet notes to Tommy Dorsey - Frank Sinatra “The Song is You” [5 CDs RCA 07863 66353-2]
As I noted in Part 1 of this feature on Old Blue Eyes, at the time of its publication in 1968, Mr. Shaw was considered Frank Sinatra’s biographer. Obviously, since that time, Sinatra: Twentieth Century Romantic has been superseded by other biographies but not, in my opinion, surpassed.
I think Shaw’s bio is particularly strong on the early years of Frank’s career from which I’ve drawn the Part 1 feature on Sinatra’s time with the Harry James Orchestra and this subsequent Part 2 feature on Frank’s tenure with Tommy Dorsey’s Band.
Part 2 examines why Frank’s tenure with Tommy Dorsey’s big band was so formatively important to the development of Frank’s career, but more importantly, to his singing style.
Copyright ® Arnold Shaw, copyright protected; all rights reserved, the author claims no right of copyright usage.
I Remember Tommy
“THE DORSEY AFFILIATION was, of course, the realization of a dream. Only recently Frank told of how, in his Harry James days, all the young singers wanted to connect either with Dorsey or Miller. While Miller had the more exciting band, his was not a singer's band. The vocal chorus in a Glenn Miller arrangement was like a side dish between the instrumental courses; the band aroused comment because of a distinctive sound achieved through the use of a clarinet doubling the tenor sax in a higher octave. With Dorsey, however, certain arrangements were written around the vocal chorus and the singer stood forth as the featured talent. While he was with James, Frank had, in fact, tried to attract the trombone man's attention. One evening when he was at the New Yorker listening to the Bob Chester band, he spotted Dorsey in the room with a pretty girl. Frank approached Chester, who allowed him to do a vocal with the band. But Dorsey was apparently more interested in the girl than in a new male warbler.
According to trumpeter Lee Castle, with whom Frank roomed, Sinatra sang with the Dorsey band for the first time at the Palmer House in Chicago. Jo Stafford, then one of the Pied Pipers, places Frank's first appearance at Rockford, Illinois during the last week of January, 1940. What we do know is that a Variety reviewer caught the Dorsey band at the Lyric Theatre in Indianapolis during the week of February 2 and reported that Frank sang "in an easy style to a solid hand." The Sinatra vocals were "My Prayer," "Careless," "All the Things You Are," and "South of the Border," while "Marie" was a production arrangement in which Frank was joined by the Pied Pipers, three men and a girl.
As Jo Stafford remembers Frank's first performance: "We were onstage when Tommy made the announcement for Sinatra's first appearance. As Frank came up to the mike, I just thought, 'Hmm— kinda thin.' But by the end of eight bars, I was thinking, 'This is the greatest sound I've ever heard.' But he had more. Call it talent. You knew he couldn't do a number badly."
By the middle of March, New York audiences and music business heard Dorsey's new male vocalist at the Paramount. "Sock all the way," was Variety's verdict. "He's sure of himself and it shows in his work." Billboard said: "He's developing into a first-rate singer. His 'South of the Border' is the best thing on the bill."
Nevertheless, later on Sinatra said his early months with Dorsey were among "the most miserable" of his performing life. It was not the band but the amazing loyalty that he sensed in audiences to his predecessor, Jack Leonard. Nor did his first year with Dorsey stir any great personal recognition. Variety reviews of the band's recordings usually characterized his vocals as "standout." Of the May premiere at the Astor Roof, Billboard wrote: "Sinatra, a good ballad singer, is nil on showmanship." In the publication's annual Collegiate Choice of Male Vocalists, Frank trailed in the low number twenty-two position, with Ray Eberle of the Glenn Miller band number one, Jack Leonard, ex-Dorsey vocalist number two, and Bob Eberly of the Jimmy Dorsey band number three.
The Dorsey orchestra was one of the busiest, filling gaps between major engagements at the Meadowbrook, the Astor Roof, and the Hollywood Palladium with highly remunerative one-nighters. In entertainment jargon, a succession of single bookings in different places, one-nighters imposed the grueling routine of traveling through the night after an engagement, traveling all clay, and performing all evening, only to spend the night and day traveling to a new location. The Dorsey band used a chauffeured bus. Band members who needed sleep usually took the front seats along with Dorsey, who caught his eight hours under any conditions. Sinatra and other night people occupied the rear seats. Apart from the monotony of the grind, one-nighters made it extremely difficult to relax or exercise, to take proper care of simple matters like laundry and clothes, to keep in touch with loved ones, or even to perform well.
One-nighters forced an intimacy upon members of a band, which unavoidably made them familiar with each other's mannerisms and personal habits. Frank left three impressions upon band members. He was regarded as a high-liver. Always ready to pick up the tab, he insisted on staying at the best hotels, no matter where the rest of the band roomed. Band members were also impressed by his cleanliness. Despite the rigors of traveling and no matter how rushed the trip was, he would not sit down to eat at a dirty table. Nor could band members understand how, after long hours in the bus, Frank would emerge with his clothes immaculate. He insisted on showers, sometimes two or three a day when facilities were available. He washed his hands so frequently it became a joke. Even then, he always asked for his pay and change in new bills. His traveling cases were models of neatness, with each item in place and the clothes precisely folded.
Frank was also known to have a temper better left unprovoked. ''Once in Omaha," Jo Stafford recalls, "a man in the audience threw some popcorn while I was singing. Frank flew off the bandstand in a rage. Fortunately, he couldn't pick the man out of the sea of faces. But he was ready to tear him to pieces."
Band members have never forgotten a party celebrating the opening of the Dorsey Brothers publishing companies. A newspaperman who imbibed a little too freely made an anti-Semitic remark. Although his paper was then influential in the music business, Frank dumped him on the floor. "You'll never get a decent write-up from him as long as you sing," several bandsmen warned. "If my career depended on prejudiced guys like that," Frank said, "I'd forget it."
There were other occasions when Frank resorted to violence for less significant reasons. One evening backstage at the Astor Roof, Frank accused drummer Buddy Rich of showing off during one of his vocals. As one word led to another, Frank seized the nearest object, a pitcher filled with water and ice cubes, and hurled it at the drummer. Fortunately, Buddy ducked, but the heavy pitcher shattered against a wall with such force that pieces of the glass were embedded in the plaster. A moment later, Frank was all apologies. Although this was not the last altercation between the two, when Rich launched his own band, Sinatra helped him with a twenty-five-thousand-dollar loan.
Dorsey's personality had more than a little to do with the short tempers in his band. Disposed to drive hard bargains, the Sentimental Gentleman of Swing was sharp-tongued, trigger-tempered, and loved a fight. The constant war of nerves, which had split the Dorsey Brothers band several years back, provoked feuds and walkouts. Spatting with vivacious Connie Haines, Frank refused for a time to share a microphone with her. Unquestionably, his own truculence and feeling for violence received a fine honing during the Dorsey clays.
Before Sinatra completed his first year, the band had a disk that hit the top of best-seller charts. It was an unusual Dorsey record in that, as Billboard noted, almost the entire side was taken up by a vocal. "Tempo is extremely slow," the reviewer observed, "with Sinatra and the Pied Pipers singing a prettier-than-average melody beautifully. ... A different, arresting record and one with great commercial as well as artistic appeal." The song was "I'll Never Smile Again" by Ruth Lowe, who had allegedly written it after the sudden death of her husband. The tune so stirred Tommy after Mrs. Lowe auditioned it, he canceled bookings and drove across country for two days to record it. The date was on April 23. Dorsey was obviously dissatisfied with the results, for the song was rerecorded a month later. This version was rushed out, caught on instantly, became number one on the "Hit Parade" by July 20, 1940, and remained there for a record seven weeks. Much macabre publicity appeared during the period of the song's popularity. But after it became known that another band had made an earlier recording, it seemed clear that the death of the composer's husband had really had nothing to do with the writing of the song. In Las Vegas Nights, one of two short-budget films in which he appeared with the band, Frank was briefly seen and heard singing "I'll Never Smile Again." George Simon of Metronome characterized this film as "without a doubt the worst this reviewer has seen," but said of Sinatra: "He sings prettily in an unphotogenic manner."
Although he was never part of the Pied Pipers, as has sometimes been reported, Frank worked well with the group. Usually, he doubled the lead voice, Jo Stafford's, singing the melody an octave below. "He worked very hard," Miss Stafford recalls, "so that his vibrato would match ours. He never stopped working and he blended beautifully with us." In addition to "I'll Never Smile Again," their first record together, they cut memorable disks of "Whispering," "The One I Love," and "Stardust" in 1940. During the two succeeding years, they sang together on fifteen of the ninety records Frank cut with Dorsey, including the Sinatra perennials "There Are Such Things" and "Let's Get Away from It All."
Besides "his" first hit record, 1940 brought the birth of Frank's first child. Because of the late hour at which the band finished, Frank had not traveled to the Jersey City apartment. He had just fallen asleep in the Hotel Astor room he occupied with the band's manager, when the phone rang. It was the morning of June 8 and the Margaret Hague Hospital of Jersey City was calling to announce the birth of the girl whom Frank sentimentally dubbed "Miss Moonbeams" and about whom "Nancy (With the Laughing Face)" was later written.
Shortly after Nancy Sandra's birth, a young song-plugger named Hank Sanicola raised a kitty among members of the MPCE (Music Publishers Contact Employees) for a gift to the newborn child. It is still a common practice, although the gesture is today directed mainly at disk jockeys. Sanicola was a counterboy at Witmark when he met Sinatra. A self-taught pianist, he began running over songs with the thin, unknown singer from Hoboken, helping him find his keys (they determine low and high notes in a tune). After a time, Sinatra could rely on Sanicola to get him whatever "pros" and "stocks" he wanted from the many publishers in the Brill Building, today still the mother church of Broadway publishers. Probably because of the contrast between spindly Frank and burly Sanicola, Hank became known as Frank's bodyguard. It was said that fights generated by Sinatra's hot temper were frequently settled by Hank. "Frank does pretty good as a fighter," Sanicola said on one occasion, "except he's light and his hands swell." When Frank opened his first music publishing company after he left Dorsey, Sanicola became a one-third partner. But even before then, when Dorsey launched Embassy Music (BMI) and Dorsey Brothers (ASCAP), Frank helped Sanicola locate with the new firms. The friendship and business relationship between the two lasted through all the stresses of Sinatra's career, coming to an end only in 1963. But even after they had parted, Frank named Sanicola as one of five people who had contributed most to his career. "Without his encouragement," he told Ed Sullivan, "I very easily might have tossed in the sponge."
During his second year with Dorsey, Frank's popularity began to grow rapidly, giving the bandleader both satisfaction and concern. An early indication was Billboard's annual college music survey, published as the band opened at the Astor Roof on May 20, 1941. Frank stood at the top of the poll. By the end of the year, Down Beat confirmed Sinatra's rising popularity: for the first time, he displaced his idol and rival, Bing Crosby, winner of the poll from 1937 through 1940.
Dorsey himself acknowledged Frank's increasing audience by naming him co-author, with John Quinlan, of a book he published on singing, Tips on Pop Singing. Although it has been repeated over and over that Frank never took singing lessons, Quinlan is one of several vocal teachers with whom Sinatra consulted at various times. Apparently, Frank maintained some contact with Quinlan over a period of years, for in 1948, after he settled on the Coast, he sent for him. Quinlan was actually number one on his list of the five people who helped his career. "You never heard of him," Frank told Ed Sullivan, "but he was a former Australian opera singer who became a vocal coach. If it hadn't been for his coaching when my voice was about gone, I'd have had no career. He did it for nothing because I had nothing to give him at the time."
Dorsey printed another Sinatra opus in 1941, a hit song credited to Frank, Hank Sanicola, and a shirt salesman named Sol Parker. A Sinatra perennial, "This Love of Mine" was introduced by him at the Astor opening and recorded by Dorsey a week later—on May 28. Parker is today still associated with Sinatra in his publishing enterprises. Another relationship that has carried over from the Dorsey days involves columnist Earl Wilson of the New York Post. As he waited one evening at the Meadowbrook to interview Dorsey, Wilson became immersed in conversation with "a skinny young vocalist." Although he left without any strong impression of young Sinatra, his wife reacted differently. According to the columnist, who remained Sinatra's main New York news outlet until recently, Mrs. Wilson confidently predicted that Frank would be "another Crosby."
By the beginning of 1942, relations between Dorsey and Sinatra were becoming strained. Dorsey could not help noticing that the song-pluggers who came to place new songs in his library almost always sounded Frank's reaction. It appeared that they were happiest when a new tune became part of Sinatra's repertoire rather than a Pied Pipers specialty or a band number. Axel Stordahl, then a Dorsey arranger along with Paul Weston and Sy Oliver, summed up the point of the developing conflict when he said: "After a while, it was not Tommy's show, but Frank's."
The results of the Down Beat poll of January, 1942 did not allay friction between Dorsey and his vocalist. The Dorsey band placed second in the swing band division where Benny Goodman still was the King; it was also second among sweet bands, while Glenn Miller was first. Among favorite soloists, Dorsey found himself down the list below Artie Shaw, Harry James, and Benny Goodman. But Sinatra scored as number-one vocalist, beating such stalwarts as Bob Eberly, Crosby, Ray Eberle, and Dick Haymes. Not even Dorsey's receipt of a non-returnable, individually accounted $1250 for each record he cut at RCA Victor— more than Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, or his brother Jimmy received — seemed to make up for Sinatra's mounting importance.
The record situation also contributed to the tension between Dorsey and his vocalist. At first, labels on Dorsey records carried only his name and the vague notation: "Vocal Chorus." But letters began coming into the Victor offices asking for the name of Dorsey's singer. Frank Walker, then head of the recording division, suggested that Sinatra be identified. Dorsey balked, then reluctantly yielded. As Walker, who had a wry sense of humor, later summarized developments: "The type just grew larger." Before long, Dorsey was faced with the proposition of letting Frank make solo disks. Sinatra was asking and Victor executives were willing, though not too openly. With pressures mounting on all sides, Dorsey finally capitulated.
"Night and Day" and "The Night We Called It a Day," the first two of four solo sides, were cut on March 15, 1942. A second set, "The Song Is You" and "Lamplighter's Serenade," was recorded a month later. As Victor's West Coast Artists and Repertoire (A & R) chief, Harry Meyerson supervised both sessions. "Frank was not like a band vocalist at all," he recalls. "He came in self-assured, slugging. He knew exactly what he wanted. Watching him from the control booth, I remember thinking how I would have enjoyed seeing a set-to between Frank and Tommy. With their tempers, it would have been something to watch the hot-headed Italian go at the hot headed Irishman.
"One other thing left an indelible impression. This was my first session with Sinatra and these were his first solo sides. Now, most singers tend to begin with the humble bit. At first, they're licking your hand. Then, the moment they catch a big one, you can't get them on the phone. Popularity didn't really change Sinatra. He
started out by having a good opinion of himself. On that first date, he stood his ground and displayed no humility, phony or real.
"What he was not told until after the sessions," Meyerson continued, "was that his disks were coming out, not on Victor, but on the subsidiary Bluebird label. Since Bluebird disks sold at thirty-five cents as against seventy-five cents for Victor, RCA generally did not promote them as hard. It used the subsidiary label to solve difficult problems like Dorsey and Sinatra and to keep other labels from getting big stars. When it acquired Artie Shaw on top of BG, Shaw came out on Bluebird. Trombonist Glenn Miller was Bluebird while Tommy Dorsey was Victor.
"Coming out on the subsidiary label was a kind of slough-off for Sinatra. It was Tommy's way of giving him some rope and letting him hang himself with it. But Sinatra was so good even then, you knew he would be out on his own before long."
Dorsey arranger Axel Stordahl prepared the "charts" and conducted the two sessions. "I'll never forget when we got the advance dubs on the first two sides," Stordahl recalled. "Frank had a room in the Hollywood Plaza on Vine Street opposite the Brown Derby. We sat in it all afternoon on a sunny day, playing the two sides over and over on a portable machine. Frank just couldn't believe his ears. He was so excited, you almost believed he had never recorded before. I think this was a turning point in his career. I think he began to think then what he might do on his own."
Whether Frank sensed it then or not, he was on his own less than six months later. It was the year in which three men founded a new West Coast record company toward the affluence of which Sinatra later contributed much. The creation of songwriter Johnny Mercer, lyricist Bud DeSylva, then a film producer, and record-store owner Glenn Wallichs, Capitol Records set up shop just about the time that Frank cut his first solo sides. Curiously, its first location was over Wallichs' Music City Store, just a turntable away from where Sinatra and Stordahl sat listening to his solos.
Both Down Beat and Metronome liked Frank's first two sides better than the second pair. "Sinatra hits the bull's eye squarely with his relaxed, effortless ways and smart phrasing," Down Beat wrote of "Night and Day." "Bluebird has a terrific bet here . . . and a potential juke winner." In Billboard's view, Sinatra sang "in soulful fashion that rubs so well against fem ears. Taking both in the slow tempo called for, he gives them ample romantic expression." Of the second disk, Down Beat wrote noncommittally: "Very, very pretty singing," and went on to criticize "a sloppy falsetto" at the end of "The Song Is You." Metronome was harsher, concluding its comment: "He is not an impressive singer when he lets out—that's a cinch." If Sinatra had hoped to make a splash with these disks, he was doomed to disappointment.
Nevertheless, evidence continued to accumulate of Sinatra's growing appeal to audiences. One such omen came with a recording of "There Are Such Things," cut in July, 1942, the last month in which Frank recorded with Dorsey. By December, the tune was number one on the "Hit Parade," where it remained for six consecutive weeks. Another was a July booking of the band at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh. Dorsey broke the house record previously held by Kay Kyser. But here is what Variety had to say about Sinatra: "It is unusual for a band vocalist to get the closing spot in a show. But that's the lot of Frank Sinatra. He fills it—and how! Crowd simply wouldn't let him get off and ran the opening performance overtime by at least five minutes."
Less than a month later, the trade papers were buzzing with rumors of a split between Frank and Tommy. On August 15 Down Beat reported that Sinatra was leaving the band in September and that he had been booked for theater dates and a network radio show by General Artists Corporation (GAG), then the third of the big talent agencies after Music Corporation of America (MCA) and William Morris (WM). Quite recently Sinatra revealed the specific provocation for his leaving Dorsey, as distinguished from his growing desire for independence and larger rewards. "What really put the clincher on my decision," he said, "was when I heard that Bob Eberly was planning to break off from Jimmy Dorsey. . . . Nobody had broken the ice since Crosby, and I thought that somebody is going to come along and do this any day. If Eberly got out ahead of me, I'd be in trouble."
Jack Leonard, who had tried the solo route after leaving Dorsey, had not made it. Eberly, who left Jimmy Dorsey later, did not make it. Neither did Dick Haymes, except briefly, who succeeded Sinatra in the Dorsey band and who can be heard paying a tribute to Frank on a widely circulated aircheck of "The Song Is You," made on September 19, 1942, the occasion of Sinatra's last appearance as Dorsey's male vocalist.
I Remember Tommy, one of the first albums Frank recorded after he founded his own label in 1961, opens with "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You,” Dorsey's theme, and contains eleven other songs that made Frank's association with the trombonist memorable. Reacting to the nostalgia of the occasion, Frank employed the arranging (and conducting) services of Sy Oliver, ex-Dorsey arranger, ex-Jimmy Lunceford trumpeter and arranger, and a key figure in the development of swing. As one listens to the album, one senses an important source of the rhythmic pulse which Frank imparted to the ballads of the crooning forties and which became so vital a feature of the mature Capitol Sinatra. In Oliver's approach even to ballads, either the melody itself had to swing or rhythm figures were devised to impart a beat.
Of band singing in general, Frank has recently said: "It's like lifting weights. You're conditioning yourself." On another occasion: "When my son Frankie said he would like to start singing, we thought of him going with the Dorsey band. ... He works every night to a different audience. He learns to understand his lyrics a little better . . ." Add that band vocalists learn how to articulate and phrase, since they must handle words so that accents are right and meaning comes through while they sing at a set dance tempo.
Despite the resentment he felt over the expense of buying out his contract with Dorsey, Frank never minimized his musical debt to the trombonist. "Tommy taught me everything I knew about singing," he has said. "He was my real education."
What Sinatra learned from Dorsey was breath control. Frank early observed that Tommy could play through a long musical phrase, an eight- or sixteen-bar phrase, without apparently taking an audible breath. After a time, he discovered what he has described as "a sneak pinhole in the corner of Tommy's mouth—not an actual pinhole but a tiny place" where the trombone man was breathing. "In the middle of a phrase," Sinatra explains, "while the tone was still being carried through the trombone, he'd take a quick breath, and play another four bars with that breath." As a result of this technique, Dorsey solos had a rare mooing smoothness and singing lyricism. According to Frank, it was this flowing quality, rather than his voice, that gave his singing a unique sound.
During Sinatra's tenure with Dorsey, hit songwriter Johnny Mercer became a Sinatra fan and urged all his friends to hear "the kid who phrased like Tommy and improvised like Berigan." A trumpeter like the immortal Bix whose lyricism he imitated, Bunny Berigan joined Dorsey soon after Sinatra. It is his appealing horn one hears on the famous April, 1940 version of "East of the Sun." After six months, Berigan yielded his chair to ex-Goodman trumpeter Ziggy Elman, famous for his solo on "And the Angels Sing." As he had previously sought to imitate Berigan's elegant melodizing, Sinatra slowly mastered Elman's use of vibrato to produce different tonal (and emotional) textures.
Sinatra's debt to Dorsey goes far beyond the realm of music. Dorsey was one of the first music people who sought to establish an entertainment complex of his own. Starting with publishing companies, he set up his own booking office and approached other artists about joining him. At one point, upset by what trade papers were printing about him, he considered starting his own magazine. Just before his accidental death in 1956 — he choked in his sleep on an undigested piece of apple — he was formulating plans to launch his own record company. These projects surely sound like a blueprint for the far-flung enterprises in which Sinatra has involved himself.
Although the two years and eight months with Tommy helped Frank develop musically, they did not apparently improve his relationship with Big Nancy, as she came to be known after the birth of Little Nancy. On several occasions, Frank has said that their marriage began to fall apart just about a year after the ceremony.
There is not much evidence that he worked at being married, even during the first year. This was the period when he was marking time at the Rustic Cabin and impatient to move ahead. Reports have it that he was associated with a high-spirited Hoboken group known as the Azov Club and that on occasion, Nancy would awake in their Jersey City apartment to find that Frank had not come home at all. Not even the birth of Nancy Sandra apparently changed a situation in which, as Frank has said, he came to feel that he had mistaken friendship for love.
There were additional sources of tension and friction. Nancy, who was even-tempered, nursed hurts quietly but for long periods. Frank was quick to anger, quick to cool off, and resentful of Nancy's sulking. Perhaps because she was compelled to work during the first year of their marriage, Nancy tended to handle money with care. Frank's spendthrift ways disturbed her. Nancy did not get along too well with Frank's mother, while Frank was not too happy over the many Barbato in-laws who swarmed around his home.
Once he began traveling with the James and Dorsey bands, the gap between the Sinatras widened steadily. Meeting the poised, smartly dressed, and sophisticated women who frequented spots played by name bands made Frank increasingly sensitive to Nancy's limitations. When he returned home, the contrast made for increased tensions and explosions over inconsequential matters. Years later, he said: "Nancy is a noble woman. She's done a magnificent job of raising the kids." And daughter Nancy said: "In all the years I can remember, Mom has never said an unkind thing about my father."