Forever Cool

Forever Cool is not just another best-of album

Dean Martin was entertaining the world through films, television and music for many long years. His popularity was such that he became not just an extremely popular person in show business but one of the most influential figures in the entire history of American entertaining industry. They say that even Elvis Presley himself have been influenced by Martin and patterned his famous Love Me Tender after his vocal style. Even today, 12 years after his death, Dean Martin evokes genuine esteem and still remains one of the most outstanding artists whose heyday fell on 50's and 60's. This year Capitol Records released new posthumous collection of Den Martin's songs under the title Forever Cool. But it's not just another best-of album, all the tracks here were performed in duo with different artists or to be more precise different artists performed songs in duo with Dean Martin. The album's peculiarity consists in that fact that most of these vocalists simply couldn't record their parties with Martin – the album saw the light of the day owing to the magic of technologies exclusively.

The best tracks were recorded together with instrumentalists

The idea of making artificially created artistic collaborations is hardly a new one. Frank Sinatra's Duets released in 1993, for instance, featured a whole bunch of well-known artists but Sinatra himself wasn't taking part in studio sessions - guest stars were singing along with his recoded vocal parts. Creators of Forever Cool used the same formula. You can find here Joss Stone, Robbie Williams, actor Kevin Spacey, jazz musicians Chris Botti and Dave Koz and many others. The result turned out to be pretty mixed one. Sometimes performers mange to fit in with the song's musical context and sometimes they sound a little bit out of place. The most successful tracks were recorded together with instrumentalists. In particular, Whose Got The Action and You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You were played by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy - the gorgeous swing band that really understand Dean Martin's songs. The same can be said about I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face and Just in Time, here Chris Botti performs solo parties on trumpet and Dave Koz on sax.

It is hard to compete with Dean Martin

As for the vocalists, there is almost nobody on the album who could adequately correspond to the high standards of Dean Martin's vocal professionalism. And it is not because they sing badly, quite on the contrary, each of them tries to do his or her very best, simply the stylistic and consequently professional difference is too appreciable. However, the album includes enough tracks worthy of paying attention. The good examples are Baby Its Cold Outside, recorded with country singer Martina McBride and Baby-O that features an 18-year-old American Idol winner Paris Bennett. Both of them sound sufficiently powerful and don't look dimmed against Martin, they play up to him and overall behave really suitably. The most outstanding duet is represented on Everybody Loves Somebody. Here Dean Martin sings together with Charles Aznavour – the only character of the bunch who can match Martin's singing. The very last track Brahms Lullaby is one of the most valuable compositions of the album, it is Dean Martin's previously unreleased song where he sings a capella.