"And Sinatra became cool, and made his dwelling amongst us..."

Frank Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim

I came across this marvelous video a few weeks ago and had to share it. I love the relaxed and insouciant way in which Frank fires up a cigarette and smokes while singing.

The odd thing, for someone my age at least, is that this is the music of my adolescence and young adulthood. Although I came of age at a time when the Seattle grunge rock scene was going national with bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, I was amassing a collection of records (on LP!) by guys such as Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Gene Ammons, John Coltrane, and Frank Sinatra.

The benefit of growing up and going to public school in a city like Minneapolis was that I discovered, even then, that the best way one could be counter-cultural was to be Catholic, to be "conservative", to smoke (that most politically incorrect of habits), to drink cocktails (rather than smoke marijuana, the "natural" high), and to listen to Sinatra.

Sinatra, was "cool": a talented singer and movie actor, he embodied class, poise, and showmanship, the latter thing a seemingly-lost trait in an age of noise, distance, and flashy technology. (Listen sometime to the inviting but unsentimental banter on his "Sinatra At The Sands" live album - the intimacy of the recording holds up 45 years later. It's also amazing to realize that it was released only a couple of weeks before The Beatles' "Revolver".) The dapper suits and hats, the smoking, drinking, womanizing, the association with Las Vegas gambling (and mafiosi), made him deliciously retrograde to me, and probably offensive to my peers: not only did he smoke (egad!), drink, sleep around, call women "broads" and "dames", and hang out in Vegas, he also didn't burn a draft card or take political sides. He was pretty much everything that the hippies were not.

Ultimately, though, it was about the music. Frank, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Chet Baker, Julie London, and other great singers (including Tom Jobim), sustained me through the years when I thought it was enough to be cool.

Years later, when I realized that the only truly countercultural act was to be Catholic, I started to step away from "cool" and to seek more permanent things. The music I devour now is about 500 years older than you and me and Frank, and the Faith is older still by thousands of years. It is attractive not because it's "cool", but because it's beautiful beyond all human understanding, and because Love is irresistible and life-giving.

But sometimes, when the summer draws to a close and the sun goes down earlier each evening, and a faint chill is in the air, it's nice to sit back and take in a little cool.