POP MUSIC REVIEW : FRANK SINATRA JR. AT THE FLAMINGO MUSIC CENTER

Las Vegas came to the Valley Friday and Saturday night, complete with big band jazz, off-color jokes, celebrity introductions from the audience and a headliner named Sinatra.

Yes, his first name was Frank, but before anyone dashes out in quest of reservations, be informed that there was also a “Junior” after that last magical name.

The younger Sinatra has been plagued for most of his career by comparisons with his illustrious elder--justifiably, perhaps, since the decision, very early on in his career, to emulate both the style and substance of his father’s music.

Sinatra Jr.’s first show at the Flamingo Music Center Saturday night exposed the hazards, as well as the benefits of that decision.

On the plus side, the genes are right; his voice has matured into an elegant baritone lightly touched with the buzzing edge that made the elder Sinatra’s sound so appealingly new when he made his comeback in the early ‘50s. In fact, Sinatra Jr.’s vocal instrument is now the real stuff, as good--dare I say it?--as his father’s ever was.

What he does with it is another story. Most of his program could have been lifted bodily out of the fake book of a fifties’ cocktail lounge singer: “It’s A Marshmallow World,” “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” “The Girl Next Door,” “Sunny,” and “River Stay Away From My Door.”

Dependable stuff, all of it, not quite in the war horse category, and sung with a nice lyric sense and a surprisingly strong rhythmic flow (especially “Sunny”).

Brief forays into, ahem, “contemporary” material such as Harry Nilson’s “Remember” and America’s “Horse With No Name” were poorly arranged, confusingly interpreted, and doomed to predictable failure. There are topical pieces that would adapt well to Sinatra Jr.’s style, but these were not the ones.

More to the point, Sinatra Jr.’s performance demonstrated that he has the talent and skill to reach beyond the diminishing musical territory of his paterfamilias. It’s still not too late.