A NAT KING COLE BIRTHDAY SPECIAL, Part 3: Nat & Nelson -"Sweethearts on Parade"

Happy Nat King Cole's Birthday! ("Known in some homes as St. Patrick's Day," to quote the wonderful pianist-singer Eric Comstock)

Very special thanks to Jordan Taylor, the number one Nat King Cole discographer and researcher, for his essential help with this column. Also special thanks to Robert Isaiah for his expert art direction on the special album covers in this series! (Thanks also to Ellizabeth Zimmer & Dan Fortune for their expert proofing, hey!)

November 5, 1958, New York

In October and November 1958, Cole was enjoying one of his frequent residencies as the Copacabana - across the street from Central Park at 10 East 60th Street - which was his home base in New York - and contractually obligated as such - for the entire second half of his career.

Although he was working every night at the Copa, he was even busier in the daytime - in fact, this was one of the busiest spurts of recording activity in his whole career, over these three weeks he would make fully seven long sessions at Capitol’s New York recording studios, turning out at least 28 masters, including the complete album Tell Me All About Yourself with arranger-conductor and sometimes producer Dave Cavanaugh. He also did one date of three familiar songs for the standards project.

Meet me at the Copa: with Roy and Mrs. Campanella - November 7th, 1958

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“I Had The Craziest Dream” (2:36)
Harry Warren & Mack Gordon

Above: the original, unaltered master, from the Bear Family box.
Below: the master with overdubs, from the 1966 Great Songs! album.

This Harry Warren / Mack Gordon song, written for Helen Forrest and Harry James in Springtime in the Rockies (1942), was one of the biggest hits of the WW2 era. Nat had been singing Harry Warren songs throughout his entire career, and even had Warren himself as a guest on a June 1957 episode of the NBC TV series. Nat and Nelson’s treatment is moving and lovely, although, as usual, the overdubs pretty much sabotage everything.

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“I Wish I Knew” (2:19)
Harry Warren & Mack Gordon

Above: Once again, the original, unaltered master, from the Bear Family box.
Below: the master with overdubs, from the 1966 Great Songs! album.

Another Mack Gordon & Harry Warren / 20th Century-Fox movie musical wartime hit, this one from the 1945 Diamond Horseshoe, memorably introduced on screen and on wax by Dick Haymes. Cole sings both of these with uncommon tenderness - making it more’s the pity that the unaltered masters are so rarely heard.

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“Be Still My Heart” (2:33)
Allan Flynn & Jack Egan

This 1934 song doesn’t exactly qualify as a standard; it was recorded at that time by an American star in London - Alberta Hunter with Jack Jackson’s Orchestra - and by a British star in New York - Al Bowlly with Victor Young’s Orchestra. (That one is playable on the Bowlly discography page here.) Cole was known to be a fan of the Ray Noble - Al Bowlly combination - he said so in a 1953 radio interview - and undoubtedly knew Hunter’s work as well. This is another exceptional performance; Riddle makes excellent use of French horns during the bridge, and it’s another fine overlooked song, with a title paraphrasing Shakespeare, that ought to be heard more often.

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November 7, 11, and 12, 1958, New York

Still at the Copa, Cole made four more dates with Riddle after the November 5 “standards” session, and there’s one standard on three out of these four sessions. (He was also recording a bunch of pop songs, some of his more rock and R&B-ish material, lots of miscellaneous material as well as, as mentioned, the Tell Me All About Yourself album.)

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“You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want To Do It)” (2:54)
James Monaco & Joseph McCarthy

This is the 1913 Tin Pan Alley ballad, associated with Al Jolson and, later, Judy Garland. The Nat-Nelson track was issued, curiously, not as a traditional single but as the title track of a four-song EP. Nelson opens with a dramatic sting, and the strings behind Nat on the first chorus have something of an old-fashioned, Gordon Jenkins-esque feel, which works brilliantly on this ur-standard.

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“Sweethearts On Parade” (2:24)
Carmen Lombardo, Charles Newman

By contrast, “Sweethearts” sounds like Riddle at his most Nelsonian. As Nat swings, the “sweethearts” of the title take the musical shape of the trombones as they parade both in front of and behind the star singer. This was a 1928 product by the Lombardo Brothers; singer and trumpeter Carmen Lombardo wrote the lyrics, and sang the song on the hit recording with his brother Guy Lombardo’s Royal Canadians. Louis Armstrong, who cited the Lombardos as his “inspirators,” sang it in tribute to them, and Nat Cole doubtlessly was inspired to sing it by Armstrong. This is a lovely treatment, rendering this jazz standard as more of a slow ballad than usual - one only wishes it were a half chorus or so longer. It’s so good, but it almost feels like it’s over before it starts. As we have seen, this was to be the title track of Nat’s proposed ballad album in 1960.

from the vaults at Capitol Records: the assembly reel for the proposed 1960 album SWEETHEARTS ON PARADE.

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“You're My Thrill” (3:17)
Sidney Clare & Jay Gorney

Composer Jay Gorney gave us three songs that most people know - in addition to this 1933 copyright - the 1929 torch song, “What Wouldn't I Do for That Man” and the 1932 Great Depression classic, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” both with words by Yip Harburg. (Gorney also gave us a talented daughter in the Saturday Night Fever actress Karen Gorney.) Conversely, lyricist Sidney Clare wrote a lot of songs that were popular in the 1920s and early ‘30s - including “Ma, He's Making Eyes at Me,” which we love by Billy Eckstine - and a number of “Mammy” songs - but virtually nothing that’s still heard today. “You’re My Thrill” may be the most performed song by either composer, thanks to a well-known 1949 version by Billie Holiday. Nat’s treatment is very affecting, again making it all the more frustrating that it was practically never heard. (Thanks to “KingCole1965” for posting this unaltered but misspelled master.)

Postscript: In addition to the project which Nat described as a “swing album,” in 1960 he and Gillette were planning a project to be titled Sweethearts on Parade, which was possibly more of a ballads collection drawing from these 18 tracks as well as others. Needless to say, neither was released, and to this day, the best way to hear them (other than the links above) is the 2006 Bear Family box set titled Stardust. The From the Vaults streaming releases are also valuable, although I guess you’re out of luck if you want physical media. In any case, let me know how you liked this column.

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Coming this Wednesday March 19, THE NEW YORK ADVENTURE CLUB presents the second of a three-part virtual online series on THE ELLA FITZGERALD SONGBOOKS - ELLA FITZGERALD SINGS THE DUKE ELLINGTON SONGBOOK. (All presentations are available for replay viewing for one week after the live event. For more information & reservations, please click here.)

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Sing! Sing! Sing! : My tagline is, “Celebrating the great jazz - and jazz-adjacent - singers, as well as the composers, lyricists, arrangers, soloists, and sidemen, who help to make them great.”
A production of KSDS heard Saturdays at 10:00 AM Pacific; 1:00PM Eastern.
To listen to KSDS via the internet (current and recent shows are available for streaming.) click here.
The whole series is also listenable on Podbean.com; click here.

SING! SING! SING!

The NAT KING COLE birthday Special - Nat & Nelson swing the Standards
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Ella Fitzgerald: "Ella's Race Problem" with Judith Tick
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Nat King Cole: "We Are Americans Too" (“Assault on a King”)
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THE REAL AMBASSADORS with special guest Ricky Riccardi
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The Don Redman Songbook
(SSS #135 2025-02-15 Black History Month)
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