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Nat King Cole is an American icon, an enormous talent who died too soon and who, as is often the case, is best known for his less worthy work. Cole’s best known hit is arguably “Mona Lisa,” though he continues to get annual airplay to this day with “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire (The Christmas Song);” though his voice and delivery are warm and intimate on both tracks, they are, in the custom of the time, overproduced, laden with an orchestral background that threatens to hijack, rather than support.
I would argue that to fully appreciate the depth of the man’s talent one has to go back to Cole’s lesser-known and under-appreciated work with the King Cole Trio. The trio setting --- piano, guitar, and bass --- was perfect as a vehicle for Cole’s gifts. TRANSCRIPTIONS is a three CD set containing 70 odd tracks from the trio, originally recorded for radio play only between 1946 and 1950. There is a playful, loose exuberance here --- many of the songs were recorded in one take --- but the result is the creation of an emotional, timeless music that sounds, perhaps, even better now than it did when it was originally performed.
Cole is at his peak on these songs; his distinctive vocals are warm, embracing, enveloping, uniquely and seemingly effortlessly styled without pyrotechnics or hysterics. His voice seems to come from somewhere deep inside of him, yet from without as well, cutting across dimensions; if you’re looking for a definition of soul, in all its permutations, you arguably need look no further than here. There are standards here, “Route 66,” “Dream A Little Dream of Me,” and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” and all-but-forgotten songs like “She’s My Buddy’s Chick,” and “It’s Kind of Lonesome Out Tonight.” Yet the real surprise here is the instrumental tracks. Cole, it is often forgotten, was a master pianist and composer in his own right, as demonstrated on tunes such as “All Aboard” and “You Name It.” Cole’s partners, guitarist Oscar Moore (later replaced by Irving Ashby) and bassist Wesley Prince (later replaced by Johnny Miller) certainly demonstrate on each of these tracks that they were up to the task of accompanying their more famous vocalist and pianist.
The music on TRANSCRIPTIONS is simply timeless. For those who are only familiar with Cole’s later work, wherein he eschewed jazz and focused entirely on pop, these tracks serve as an exhibit and testimony as to what all the fuss was and continues to be about. Highly recommended.
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Joe Hartlaub is in private law practice, specializing in entertainment law. He is the music editor for SavvyInsider.com
For a complete bio, click here.
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