Insouciance and Sinatra

 

insouciance - noun - casual lack of concern; indifference

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that one of the hats I wear is one of a professional entertainer, a singer/dancer who purveys joy at area nursing homes, assisted living residences and halfway houses. Ironically, I share a birthday with Frank Sinatra and a small number of other crooners who can be found on the A-list of celebrities. (If found at all, I'm on the E-list, nearly extinguished as opposed to distinguished, but I'll take what I can get.) Being that most of the inhabitants of the nursing homes tend to be over eighty, I tend to perform quite a few of Frank's hits to please them or just to stimulate them to sing along as opposed to falling asleep (which often can and does happen). 

Before I start the series of tunes, I tend to query the audience as to how many still listen and like Sinatra's common standards. Due to insouciance or just lethargy, I don't usually see a lot of hands. Which is fine since I wind up singing them anyway regardless. Musicians can't make massive alternations to a playlist at the last minute. Sometimes, though, there is one fan of the man who, at the close of the concert, wheels her way to the front to thank us for the memories. This particular Tuesday, there was one woman, who had to be in her nineties. She stayed behind to share with us her recollections of Sinatra from his earliest beginnings in backwoods Jersey bars and restaurants to his sold-out concerts at the large venues. Listening to her was like being inside of a documentary about Ol' Blue Eyes. For those few minutes, the man and his magic were resurrected through her monologue punctuated with facial expressions that increased the voltage of the room's lighting. It was as if she were transmogrifying into a bobby-soxer again, and we were accompanying her in the time machine. Insouciance was nowhere to be seen; the woman truly loved Sinatra and everything that he represented. 

There is nothing more magical or immortal than music and the musical magicians who have intoxicated and mesmerized audiences for decades and beyond. Today, out of curiosity and nostalgia for my deceased dad, I went onto YouTube just to see how many views one of Sinatra's contemporaries, Glenn Miller has: several million. Enough said.

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