Paging Sammy, Dino and Bing

FRANK SINATRA, “Duets II” ( Capitol ) *1/2

Last year’s “Duets” seemed--at least to these more forgiving ears--a sweet novelty. The unevenness of its live-on-tape vocal collaborations was less significant than the idea of legendary voices blending or colliding at last, plus, of course, the touching valedictory undertones. Valedictory, schmaledictory. “Duets” is simply a franchise, and “Duets II” is a bust.

With a lineup that includes Jimmy Buffett, Lorrie Morgan, Patti LaBelle, Jon Secada, Steve & Eydie, Frank Jr., etc., the Dream Team this ain’t--though, with Luis Miguel and Antonio Carlos Jobim aboard, the “international market” may be doing cartwheels as we speak.

The orchestra sounds terrific, as before, and Sinatra’s always intriguing, playful way of reinventing the phrasing hasn’t abandoned him. But by the time he and Neil Diamond close out the set with “The House I Live In” in a bout of mutual overkill, you could cut the kitsch with “Mack the Knife.”

We’re warned “Duets III” is already in the works for Christmas ‘95, but here’s hoping for another Sinatra solo album before every adult-contemporary artist in North and/or Latin America gets a turn at the karaoke.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).