Frank Sinatra centennial: Vancouver musician remembers friend and mentor

Vancouver-based singer Kenny Colman can still clearly remember when he first met Frank Sinatra, arguably the greatest singer of American popular music, who was born 100 years ago on Dec. 12.

"When he looks you in the eye, his blue eyes are synonymous with luminous sunshine bursting." said Colman of his meeting with 'Ol' Blue Eyes' at Jilly's Saloon in New York in 1959.

"He uses the word marvelous a lot," recalled Colman during an interview with Hot Air host Margaret Gallagher. "He said, 'Kenny, you were marvelous.'"

A mentor and friend

Colman came to consider Sinatra a mentor and a friend. 

When Sinatra played the big rooms of Vegas and Tahoe, he often booked his Canadian friend to play the lounges.

Colman, whose own talent as a jazz vocalist has made him a fixture on the international club circuit from New York to Monte Carlo, said his career got a boost from Sinatra.

Colman said Sinatra was "the best agent I ever had," and remembered when he wanted to continue his career in Europe, Sinatra made a single phone call and got him his first gig in Monte Carlo.  

"All these things happened because of Frank, he took the time, he didn't have to do it," Colman said.

'The Voice'

When asked what made Sinatra, known also as 'The Voice', such an inspiring and moving singer, Colman said it was his "ability to make you believe him."

"You don't have to be a singer to know what Frank had," he said.

"When he sang, Once I loved, Harry Connick [Jr.] could say it, he could say it 10,000 times and you wouldn't believe it."

"Frank had his own genre, his own style. He didn't sing on the beat, he knew like a musician to lay back."

Sinatra struggled throughout his life with mood swings and depression.

During the show, Gallagher explained Sinatra believed that experienced allowed him to feel the emotions a songwriter was trying to convey.

She pointed to a candid interview in the February 1963 edition of Playboy magazine.

"I don't know what other singers feel when they articulate lyrics, but being an 18-karat manic-depressive and having lived a life of violent emotional contradictions, I have an over acute capacity for sadness as well as elation," Sinatra said to Playboy's Alex Haley.

"I know what the cat who wrote the song is trying to say. I've been there and back. I guess the audience feels it along with me. They can't help it. Sentimentality, after all, is an emotion common to all humanity."

Reflecting back on Sinatra's centennial, Colman said the following: "I thank you for all the good music you brought to the world and gave to us, I'm glad I was a part of it."

To hear the full interview listen to the audio labelled: Vancouver-based jazz singer Kenny Colman reflects on 100th birthday of Frank Sinatra, his friend and mentor