Happy NAT Year!
Some good news for Nat King Cole fans - some general news for all of us, and some specifically great news for me, hey!
The “Nat Blanton” session (aka “When Nat Met Art”)
First of all, there’s been a major discovery by the eminent West Coast-based jazz collector and historian, Steven Lasker. Known primarily as one of the world’s premiere experts on all aspects of Duke Ellington, Steven very recently discovered a set of acetates of a private jam session from May 1942. In my biography of Nat King Cole, I have some quotes from Norman Granz (provided to me by Tad Hershorn, Granz’s biography) where he talks about these jazz parties. He vividly recalls one such evening when Art Tatum, Nat Cole, and Count Basie were all present. In Granz’s recollection, Tatum and Cole dominated the piano, and Basie didn’t want to play at all - he was too intimidated by Art and Nat.
Our buddy, Professor Lewis Porter (one of my original mentors in the field of jazz scholarship, although he isn’t that much older than I am, hey), is discussing these recordings in exquisite detail in his substack, Playback.
These new acetates are from just such a session, with Tatum and Cole both playing at different points, as well as bassist Slam Stewart and multi-reed player Eddie Barefield. What makes it even more special is that on the first track, “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” Tatum was at the keyboard, Cole was so determined to play that he just (apparently) semi-spontaneously picks up Slam Stewart’s bass and starts playing. Eddie Barefield solos on clarinet, and near the end of that solo, about 1:45 in, we hear someone saying “Wig notes of Nat Blanton.” This is obviously a gag reference to the legendary bassist with Duke Ellington, who had already left that band because of health reasons and would die in July. Nat’s older brother, Eddie Coles, was a world-class professional bassist, who had toured the world with Noble Sissle’s Orchestra, and doubtlessly some of the rudiments at least of jazz bassistry had rubbed off on the kid brother. As Professor Porter points out, Nat was no Blanton, but he gets the job done.
(Interestingly, Lewis hears that spoken sentence as “Sweet notes of Nat Blanton,” I hear “Wig notes.” This possibly is a slang reference to craziness, crazy being a musician’s / hipster’s indication of approval, as in “Crazy, man, crazy” or even Lord Buckley’s “He has goofed to Wig City.” Anyhow, Lewis has posted the track, let me know what you think this person - whoever he is - is saying. Update: Jordan Taylor - see below - and guitarist / scholar Nick Rossi both hear “sweet notes,” as does Lewis, whereas Steven Lasker and myself vote for “Wig Notes.” Let me know what you think!)
In any case, the first post of Lewis’s substack series on the session is here. Go, man, go!
Some Personal Good news re Nat :
I have never really collected autographs - except on album covers - although I do have one from Tony Bennett and one on a letter from Sinatra. I’ve always wanted to have a Nat King Cole autograph and now I do.
This was a New Year’s gift from my very good friend Dr. Harvey A. Kaplan and his adorable wife Katharine Baum, who have been close to me for years (part of the inner Wilsci circle, aka “the infamous IWC.”) In addition to being a very successful psychiatrist, Harvey is a lifelong music buff, and he combined the two in his 2017 book, Frank Sinatra: The Swinging Narcissist. (Available on Amazon, here.)
Harvey, who was born in 1932, went to a live broadcast in 1946 or ‘47 to see the world famous King Cole Trio. I suspect that this was an episode of Cole’s great series of 1946-’48, King Cole Trio Time, sponsored by Wild Root Cream Oil. (For this program, Cole composed the advertising jingle, “Get Wild Root Cream Oil Charlie.” At this point, both Cole and legendary cartoonist Al Capp were both employed by Wild Root and Li’l Abner’s favorite detective, Fearless Fosdick, also used that jingle as an ad slogan. Now here’s a pop culture rabbit hole to dive into.) This was the classic trio, with guitarist Oscar Moore (who left in the early Fall of 1947) and bassist Johnny Miller. Johnny Mercer, the legendary songwriter and producer who founded Capitol Records, was also present. (Our current theory is that this is the King Cole Trio Time broadcast of December 7, 1946, from New York, in which the guest was Johnny Mercer.)
My 14 or 15-year-old friend Harvey was astute enough to get all their autographs - including Mercer’s - on a tiny piece of cardboard. He had it framed and for decades it was hanging on his wall; he offered it to me ten years ago, but I didn’t want to deprive him of it. But more recently, I have started to more aggressively decorate my spacious midtown luxury apartment with various tchotchkes, momentos, and assorted bric-a-brac and when Harvey and Katharine offered it to me again, I decided that it really belongs up on what I call “The Legendary Wall of Nat.”
Those of us who love Nat King Cole truly owe a great debt to Jordan Taylor, who for years and years, has painstakingly compiled one of the greatest discographies ever done of a major American singer and musician. (Yes, Ivan Santiago’s Peggy Lee pages, which also use the Brian discographical software created by Steve Albin, are also a contender.)
Jordan has just prepared a new update of the Nat King Cole Discography, and anybody with even the slightest interest in the King and his Royal Canon are encouraged to take a look. Jordan’s work makes it ridiculously easy to look up any aspect of Cole’s musical legacy, any song, any album, any session, any radio or TV show. The works! It’s all in there.
Jordan and I are also working on a Nat-centric series for Slouching Towards Birdland: we’re going to go through all the occasions we know of when Sinatra and Cole were in the same place at the same time, and sort through all the photos that exist of them together. We’ll call it “When Frankie Met Nat.”
The photo at the top of the page is both a preview and an inquiry. This was taken at Cole’s opening at La Vie En Rose in New York, December 5, 1952 (a week before Sinatra’s 37th birthday). This was published in the 1991 Mosaic Records King Cole Trio box; I left in the vintage caption, but it’s obviously not Ava Gardner. In fact, for 30 years or so we’ve been wondering who this woman is. (So far the best guess is from Rob Waldman, who thinks it may be the comedienne Barbara Heller, who later appeared on Sinatra’s Timex show. We were also wondering if it might be Julie Wilson? Of course, it could just be a random woman who happened to be within camera range.) If anybody has any ideas, let me know, hey
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Very Special thanks to the fabulous Ms. Elizabeth Zimmer, for expert proofreading of this page, and scanning for typos, mistakes, and other assorted boo-boos!
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.
THIS SATURDAY - JANUARY 13 - “THE AL BOWLLY BIRTHDAY BONANZA,” WITH SPECIAL GUEST (via an unheard Wilsci interview) LEGENDARY PENNIES FROM HEAVEN SCREENWRITER, DENNIS POTTER.
SPECIAL ENCORE PERFORMANCES!
December 31: The Early Years 1935-42 hosted by Will Friedwald
January 1: The Columbia Years 1943-’49 hosted by Ken Poston
January 2: The Radio Years: hosted by Chuck Granata
January 3: The Fall and Rise (1950-’54) hosted by Will Friedwald
January 4: Frank and Nelson hosted by Will Friedwald
January 5: The Capitol Years hosted by Loren Schoenberg
January 6: Bonus! Sing! Sing! Sing! Some Frank Conversation with Adam Gopnik
January 7: The Movies: Hosted by Chuck Granata
January 8: The Early Reprise Years 1960-'65 hosted by Loren Schoenberg
January 9:The Concert Years hosted by Ken Poston
January 10: The Rat Pack hosted by Ken Poston
January 11: Inside the Studio hosted by Chuck Granata
January 12: Bonus! In the Wee Small Hours with AJ Lambert (Sinatra’s granddaughter)
January 13: 1965-1974 The Main Event hosted by Will Friedwald
SLOUCHING TOWARDS BIRDLAND is a subStack newsletter by Will Friedwald. The best way to support my work is with a paid subscription, for which I am asking either $5 a month or $50 per year. Thank you for considering. (Thanks as always to Beth Naji & Arlen Schumer for special graphics.) Word up, peace out, go forth and sin no more! (And always remember: “A man is born, but he’s no good no how, without a song.”)
Note to friends: a lot of you respond to my SubStack posts here directly to me via eMail. It’s actually a lot more beneficial to me if you go to the SubStack web page and put your responses down as a “comment.” This helps me “drive traffic” and all that other social media stuff. If you look a tiny bit down from this text, you will see three buttons, one of which is “comment.” Just hit that one, hey. Thanks!
Hi, Will. In one of your books you asserted that Al Bowlly had died of fright induced heart failure because of a Luftwaffe bomb's striking the hotel room next to his.
While that's certainly a possibility, what physics and neurology have learned about blast related deaths in the last thirty years leads me to speculate that a likelier cause of Bowlly's death was a shockwave caused internal injury. Yes, it is possible for someone to have been killed by a blast shockwave without having an external scratch on his body.
It would be difficult to make a Substack edition out of this, let alone a song, but for the record, as they say, hey.