By Jerry Pearce

I’ve been listening to the music of Frank Sinatra regularly since my formative years of high school. In my sophomore year, I received my first Sinatra album as a Christmas gift from a classmate, a compact disc of Sinatra’s next to final album at Capitol Records, the jovial 1961 release “Come Swing With Me,” with Billy May and his orchestra. Riding home from school for holiday break, I popped the disc into my amber-colored (and now fiercely antiquated) Sony CD Walkman.

Listening to the sounds of May’s lit brass section firing off stinging notes from both sides of my headphones on the opening track, “Day By Day,” it was truly the first time I had listened to a Sinatra song that wasn’t considered for (or ever part of) a greatest hits’ compilation.