By the time of his death in 1998 at age 82, Frank Sinatra had solidified his place as one of the greatest popular singers of the 20^th Century.

But what made Sinatra Sinatra?

The program, called "Perfectly Frank: An Appreciation of the Music of Frank Sinatra," will coincide with the singer’s 87^th birthday.

It will explore, among other things, how Nelson Riddle’s arrangements helped to transform Sinatra into a matchless song stylist from a boy crooner.

Videos showing Sinatra performing such songs as "I’ve Got You Under My Skin," live, will illustrate his evolution into a giant.

Registration can be taken by phone at (732) 224-2315, and online at www.brookdale.cc.nj.us.

"Frank Sinatra was a true original," entertainer Mel Torme said. "He held the patent, the original blueprint on singing the popular song, a man who would have thousands of imitators but who, himself, would never be influenced by a single, solitary person."

His songs were classics and crossovers: "Night and Day," "Young at Heart," "One for My Baby," "How About You?" "Day by Day," and "Come Fly With Me."

"One of Sinatra's favorite toasts to make with glass in hand was, `May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine,"' said Tony Bennett. "The master is gone, but his voice will live forever."

Sinatra called it the "bel canto" Italian school of singing, involving the smooth connection of notes, more difficult, he once boasted, than the style of Bing Crosby, the crooner who inspired Sinatra to become a singer.

The first popular singer to use breathing for dramatic effect, Sinatra also learned to use his microphone to enhance his voice. He used pauses to help tell a story.

His phrasing - hitting certain words to make them more meaningful - was more like jazz phrasing.

The kids loved it. So did their children. So did their grandchildren.

It was a voice that grew better with age and with emotional blows.

Sinatra's voice would grow better as a performance wore on, enhanced by each sip from the whiskey glass, each drag from the cigarette, drawing in the audience, no matter how big, as he sang.

When Sinatra died, the world lost the last major representative of the American Songbook tradition to which Cole Porter and George Gershwin belonged, said Will Friedwald, author of "Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer's Art," published by Scribner in 1995.

As an artist, Sinatra combined the best of two vocal traditions, the writer said.

"Singers such as Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan focused on melody and harmony rather than on words," he said, "while others such as Julie Wilson and Mabel Mercer were concerned more with story."

Friedwald said: "What made Sinatra so special was that he did both."

Sinatra's two major influences were Crosby and Billie Holiday, maintains archivist Ric Ross, who co-produced Reprise's 1995 20-disc box set of the singer's work.

"It was the way they put a song together, the way they dramatized the lyrics," he said.