The King’s Two Worlds

“Nat King Cole, born in 1919 as Nathaniel Adams Coles (he dropped the “s” from his surname early in his career), is remembered today mainly as an outstanding vocalist. He charmed with a voice of a subtle, dark tone, recorded so close to the microphone that it seemed that he was singing right next to the listener’s ear. He became a huge star in the winter of 1946, thanks to his first solo hits, I Love You For Sentimental Reasons and the Christmas song The Christmas Song, which is now a staple of the December radio airwaves. At that time, he joined the ranks of giants of American popular song: Perry Como, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, while remaining an individual and original artist. Cole’s position was consolidated in the early 1950s by the enormous popularity of songs he sang, such as Nature Boy (1948), Mona Lisa (1950), Too Young (a hit of 1951 Billboard magazine). Cole then climbed to the top: he recorded hit records, hosted his own radio and television shows, received film roles, and, importantly, won the adoration not only of the African-American community, but also – although it was not easy at the time – the recognition of white America. This impressive series of successes ended with his premature death in 1965, when Cole lost an unequal battle with lung cancer.

Nat King Cole was also an excellent pianist, who in 1937 came up with an ingenious idea in its simplicity. Instead of a big band – he founded a chamber trio: only double bass, guitar, piano and singing, plus a dance pulse (although without drums, but with what swing!), performing bite, blues character, solo parts and choruses sung in choral unison… All this together brought Nat Cole recognition in the jazz community in the 1940s and a royal nickname that became his second surname: King. The Nat King Cole Trio’s recordings, especially those from 1942 (Indiana, Body and Soul, I Can’t Get Started and Tea for Two), have become part of the strict canon of jazz, and the significance and influence of this group is reflected in the number of outstanding jazz musicians who imitated the sound of Cole’s trio. Among them are Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, and Ray Charles, for whom Nat King Cole was the greatest role model.

Nat King Cole’s transformation from an elite, singing pianist whose playing even Count Basie admired, into a crooner enjoying mass popularity; moving from improvisation and blues towards accessible songs, wrapped in fashionable strings – for some jazz fans this meant betrayal and selling out to the god of commercialism. An illustration of this criticism could probably be a comparison of such different songs sung by Nat King Cole as the rhythm-and-blues-inflected (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66 (a hit of 1946) and the aforementioned delicate, heart-rending Mona Lisa.

For me, however, these two musical faces of Cole complement rather than exclude each other. Early Cole, with all the finesse of jazz improvisations and arrangements, is just as catchy, melodic and accessible as Cole singing Nature Boy. And the later Cole also eludes the label of a “pop star”: he never renounced his jazz roots, as can be heard in his phrasing, and he never abandoned playing jazz, as evidenced by the excellent album After Midnight from 1956. What is also interesting here is his involvement in the American civil rights movement, which was precisely in line with the social changes in jazz in the 1950s and 1960s. Cole fought, for example, with his neighbors for the right to live in a white neighborhood, attacked by a racist gang during one of his concerts, beaten, ostentatiously and boldly continued performing.

The authors of the album reach back to both periods of Nat King Cole’s work. Interestingly, in contemporary arrangements they bring out what is common in his performances, and erase the differences, which in my opinion are unnecessarily exposed. His early songs slow down a bit, release their catchy charm, and the later ones – often accelerated and more swinging – are played a bit more lively and dance. In this way, both musical worlds combine, creating a diverse image of Nat King Cole’s work. It is worth getting to know it.”

Mariusz Gradowski, article in the booklet of the album Tribute to Nat King Cole – Maciej Miecznikowski & Krzysia Górniak