Jazz master Borges is performing Sinatra’s songs with the Hawaii Pops

Jimmy Borges describes the year 2015 as "an interesting meeting of the times."

"(It’s) my 80th birthday and my 60th year in show business as a singer," Borges said. It’s also the year that he has recorded his first full-length album in 24 years, "Jimmy Borges," released by the Mountain Apple Co. in September, and it’s the birth centennial year for one of Borges’ favorite singers, Frank Sinatra, who died in 1998.

Borges joins the Hawaii Pops in celebrating what would have been Sinatra’s 100th birthday this weekend in the Coral Ballroom of the Hilton Hawaiian Village, and says he’s looking forward to singing favorites from the Sinatra songbook. The choices are almost unlimited.

"Frank Sinatra’s body of work is, to say the least, prodigious. When I’m doing songs that he has recorded, I have every emotion to choose from — and that’s what I do when selecting what song to sing as a tribute," Borges said. "I choose by the emotional connection that I want to create in my performance. It’s that simple."

"There’s ‘Luck Be a Lady’ because it swings, ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ because it has such a great arrangement, ‘Wee Small Hours,’ which is so subtly emotional, and ‘I Have Dreamed,’ for its powerful lyrics and arrangement."

For the benefit of malihini (those who have not always lived in Hawaii), Borges has been Hawaii’s foremost male jazz vocalist since the 1970s. He is also famous for being the only singer who Sinatra allowed to use his arrangements — arrangements that were created for Sinatra in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s by some of the best musicians in the business.

Borges’ access to Sinatra’s arrangements has continued with the permission of Sinatra’s estate, and that gives Borges’ concert with the Pops a unique link to Sinatra’s legacy.

"Mr. Sinatra was generous to me because he liked my approach to singing and phrasing, without trying to copy him," Borges said — adding that Sinatra would not have allowed the use if the imperious vocalist had believed Borges was trying to do an impression or be a Sinatra sound-alike.

Hawaii Pops Artistic Director Matt Catingub says emphatically that the combination of Borges’ voice and Sinatra’s charts is a winning combination.

"Frank Sinatra was, and is, the finest interpreter of the Great American Songbook," Catingub said via email, referring to a generally recognized canon of American pop songs and jazz standards that date almost entirely from before 1960. "We are blessed to have access to Mr. Sinatra’s original charts to use for this concert and that really steers us in the right direction in picking the most appropriate and uniquely authentic material."

Hawaii Pops supporters know that Catingub is a multifaceted entertainer who conducts, arranges, plays keyboards and saxophone, and sings. He’ll be singing at least once this weekend.

"My mom (the late Mavis Rivers) recorded a song called ‘There’s No You’ on her first album for Frank’s record label. Frank recorded the song in the ’50s and he wanted my mom to record it too," Catingub related. "I performed it at Carnegie Hall, representing my mom in a tribute to Frank’s music, and I’ll be singing it at our Hawaii Pops concert in tribute to Mom."

There are a substantial number of songs that many people expect Borges to sing when he does a Sinatra show. This time he is planning to also "sneak in" a song that he thinks Sinatra should have recorded but apparently never did, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face."

"I always felt that the intimacy of the lyrics were a perfect match for him," Borges said. "I recorded it on my Mountain Apple album with a gorgeous Matt Catingub arrangement. I can’t wait to do it."

Sinatra retired at least once and then returned to the recording studio and the concert stage for many more years. Maybe he kept singing because his fans didn’t want him to retire. Maybe it was because there is no substitute for the experience of entertaining an adoring crowd. Whatever the explanation, Sinatra kept singing well after he knew that his voice was in decline.

Borges doesn’t work six nights a week as he did at Trappers in the 1970s and 1980s — an engagement remembered by those who were there as a final "golden era" of jazz in Waikiki — but he has never officially "retired" either.

What he has said in recent years is that he plans to retire before he feels that his voice is starting to fade. People close to Borges have said that the Pops concert this weekend will probably be his last full-scale concert performance. Whether is it is or it isn’t, it will be a big night in local entertainment.

The good news for Borges fans is that he will also join Monica Mancini and drummer Gregg Field as guests of the Count Basie Sextet on Dec. 15 at the Halekulani. The Count Basie Orchestra rhythm section and trumpet and saxophone players will celebrate Sinatra’s 100th birthday that night with sets that include songs recorded by Sinatra and Basie together in the 1960s.