As early as 1939, Frank had turned down an offer by Red Norvo and his then wife, Mildred Bailey, to join their orchestra as the male vocalist, because he had already signed with Harry James. However, their relationship continued to be a close one, symbolized by Bill Miller, who, before becoming Sinatra’s regular in 1951, had worked extensively with the Norvo Big Band. Finally, in 1959, the crooner and the mallet master joined forces for a brief concert tour that would bring them around the world. One of the stops on that infamous tour was in Melbourne, Australia. On March 31, the combo would perform two sold out shows to the people of Australia. A recording of both events was made by some unknown Australian. The tape of the first show circulated for years amongst Sinatra fans and bootleggers alike. Eventually, the recordings of both shows made it into the posession of Capitol who put out the legal release, "With the Red Norvo Quintet: Live in Australia, 1959" on the Blue Note label. (without much remastering being done to improve the sound, btw) The majority of that album's material, however, comes from the second show as opposed to the boot that consisted of the first show alone. Here is the original bootleg recording featuring the first show of that day in Melbourne. If you have the Capitol/Blue Note release, this makes a great companion to it. Here is "A Tour De Force". Enjoy!
Frank Sinatra-A Tour De Force
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