Some albums are classics the day they’re released, and one of them is 1966’s Sinatra at the Sands, which paired iconic swing crooner Frank Sinatra with a 17-piece ensemble heavy on jazz all-stars and led by none other than William James “Count” Basie. Harry “Sweets” Edison was the trumpet soloist, the ineffable Freddie Green drove the band with his acoustic guitar, and some guy called Quincy Jones was responsible for the sheet music.

You might remember Jones from a little ditty he produced called “Thriller”, which topped the singles charts back in 1982. The man knows a thing or two about how to craft a groove, and faithful re-creations of his Basie arrangements will be on offer when the Jill Townsend Big Band pays tribute to Sinatra’s first-ever live album at Pyatt Hall this weekend.

“Count Basie and his band have been a huge influence ever since I started listening to big-band music,” the trombonist and bandleader says, interviewed by telephone from her Vancouver home. “The way that band swings, for me, is just an amazing sound. That’s so important to me, to have a swinging band—and to sound as close to Quincy’s charts as possible.”

It’s also important, she adds, to have a singer who can approximate the boundless charisma that Sinatra brought to the stage, and for that she’s had to look beyond the usual suspects. In fact, she’s gone all the way to Toronto for her vocal star, having contracted Denzal Sinclaire to front the band for the occasion.

Sinclaire’s certainly familiar with the feel of the ’50s and ’60s, having modelled his vocal and pianistic approach after Sinatra rival Nat “King” Cole’s smooth elegance. And if he’s unnerved by having to be Frank, he certainly doesn’t show it.

“I’ll have a little bit of homework do to: dye my hair, maybe get a wig, start drinking or something,” he says from his Ontario home. “Fortunately there’s a lot of crossover. He sung some material that I’m familiar with, and it’s from the same era that I enjoy. And Frank with Basie? It doesn’t get a lot better than that.

“So I’m just going to sing those songs like he might,” Sinclaire adds. “He was very devout to the lyrical content, and sang them as if he was trying to deliver their message. I feel like I try to do the same thing.”

The two Pyatt Hall shows won’t be entirely faithful to Sinatra’s Sands program, however. Bachelor-pad classics like “Come Fly With Me”, “Fly Me to the Moon”, and “It Was a Very Good Year” will make an appearance, but the original double album was only an hour and a quarter long. To make two full sets for each night, Townsend plans to add a few of her own instrumental charts, which will have the bonus of allowing her first-call sidemen—including trumpeter Brad Turner, saxophonist Campbell Ryga, and her husband Bill Coon on guitar—plenty of solo space.

“We’ve got all those talented musicians up there, so I want them to be heard,” she notes.

But there’s more going on here than just a chance for listeners to hear a landmark live recording re-created by some of Vancouver’s finest mainstream jazz performers, with an ace vocalist thrown in as a bonus. The two Jill Townsend Big Band shows are also the first in a series that local impresario, saxophonist, and JTBB band member Cory Weeds is booking into the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s new chamber venue. If you want the Sands, you’ll miss the slots. If you want Weeds’s now-defunct Cellar Jazz Club, you’ll miss the drinks. But what you’ll get instead is exceptional sound and sightlines: Pyatt Hall is a little jewel.

So there’s really only one unanswered question about what to expect this weekend, that being whether Sinclaire plans on emulating Sinatra’s lengthy, booze-soaked detour into standup comedy, as heard on Sinatra at the Sands’ “The Tea Break”.

“Jill and I haven’t talked about doing it,” says the singer, who notes that the tea being consumed was more likely the Rat Pack’s notorious “potato juice”. “Cory, however, said that he would give me money if I did the whole ‘How did all these people get into my room?’ routine. So I’ll think about that—and it could be fun!”

The Jill Townsend Big Band, with singer Denzal Sinclaire, present A Tribute to Sinatra at the Sands at Pyatt Hall on Friday and Saturday (April 4 and 5).