Nat King Cole: The Deepest Cuts of All - “Tailspin” & “Halfway To Dawn”
Now Here's a Pretty How-De-Do!
Special Thanks to David Hajdu, Jordan Taylor, Kenny Washington, and the late Phil Schaap for their input into this post. Even more special thanks to Lewis Porter, who’s substack “Playback” is highly recommended and contains several important posts regarding Nat King Cole.
In 1949, Norman Granz was an independent jazz record producer working in conjunction with the Chicago-based label Mercury Records. He had already been producing his “Jazz at the Philharmonic” concerts for six years, and releasing choice excerpts from them on 78 RPM recordings for almost that long. In that year, he released his most ambitious project to date, The Jazz Scene, a package of 12 songs on six 12” discs, which had been in the works since at least 1946.
The Jazz Scene was an amalgam of different tracks by different groups. To a certain extent, the idea was to capture some of the best working groups that were out there, or a version of them, such as the Charlie Parker Quartet and the Bud Powell Trio. But Granz was also inspired to put together unique ensembles that only came together in the recording studio for this very project, and were decidedly not working in the clubs and concert halls.
Two such projects were a smallish-group spinoff on the Duke Ellington Orchestra, spotlighting baritone saxophonist Harry Carney with a small string section, playing a tune composed and arranged by The Maestro, with Billy Strayhorn on piano. These two compositions, “Sono” and “Frustration,” are identified in the package as “The Duke Ellington Sides.”
Another was “I Want To Be Happy,” by the legendary Lester Young, working with Buddy Rich, already regarded as one of the greatest jazz drummers ever, along with a pianist who was identified on the labels as “Aye Guy.” It was fairly well known among jazz fans even when the package was first released that “Aye Guy” was Nat King Cole, who couldn’t be credited, because he was then under exclusive contract with Capitol Records. Nat and Norman had been very close friends for roughly five years by 1946, and Nat had taken time out from the confines of the King Cole Trio on numerous occasions to play hardcore instrumental jazz for various Granz projects.
The original Jazz Scene was released by Mercury as a deluxe 78 RPM album package in 1949. Roughly 45 years later, the scholar, engineer, radio raconteur, and producer Phil Schaap produced a CD edition, which featured considerably more material; the 1949 edition was 12 tracks; the 1994 2-CD version was 38 tracks and over two and a half hours of music.
Among the more remarkable discoveries that Phil brought forth were a pair of unaccompanied piano solos, which he had reason to believe were by Billy Strayhorn. There was no smoking gun, but the evidence that Phil had, he felt, pointed to the idea that the two piano tracks were connected to the same session as “Sono” and “Frustration,” on which Strayhorn was the pianist.
(Part of the confusion seems to be that Granz, before Verve at least, wasn’t great about keeping accurate documentation regarding the details of his studio sessions. The Lord Jazz Discography gives “New York, 1949” as the date for “Sono” and “Frustration” but Phil, in 2018 at least, had by then concluded that they were recorded in Los Angeles in Fall 1947.)
Phil, having decided that they were by Strayhorn, then reached out to Strayhorn’s biographer, David Hajdu, for some input regarding possible titles. One track was apparently a spontaneous blues, which became “Tailspin” - says David, that “was the brand name of Strayhorn's favorite cologne.” The other was something more like a semi-classical convention, which was given the name “Halfway to Dawn,” which, “was the phrase Strayhorn used to describe his favorite time of day.”
It’s worth pointing out that David did not actually hear the two tracks until The Jazz Scene CD set was released; at which point it immediately occurred to him that the two tracks did not sound like Strayhorn’s playing at all.
Over the last 30 years, a group of listeners, including the drummer, historian, radio host, and all-around “jazz maniac” Kenny Washington - and myself - have come to believe that the two tracks are actually the work of Nat King Cole.
Says Kenny,
I said it back in the ‘80s when Phil Schaap first played these recordings on air as part of the “Lost Masters Festival” - which featured Strayhorn’s recordings - that it was Nat. Then as now, I still feel the same way. It’s Nat Cole.
You can hear on “Halfway To Dawn” Nat’s signature piano gliss in the melody. Compare “Tailspin” with Nat’s solo on ”Back To The Land” with Lester Young and you’ll hear without a doubt that it’s definitely Nat. Billy Strayhorn was a badass and could play some blues if he so chose, but not like Nat.
Both Kenny and Lewis agree that Cole was much more likely to be playing the blues than Strayhorn, and the specific nature of the playing on “Tailspin” also points to Cole. Lewis emphasizes that the best point of comparison is “Blues In My Shower,” by the King Cole Trio (part of the album King Cole at the Piano), which, as we say below, was possibly from the same date on which Cole recorded these two solo tracks.
Assuming that they are by Nat King Cole, then they are unique in that they are the only unaccompanied piano tracks he ever recorded. Having said that, it must be admitted that there are moments in the 1946 Lester Young-Buddy Rich session - as in the blues, “Back to the Land” - where you hear Cole playing long stretches of completely solo piano; there is no bass, and there are long intervals where Young and Rich are not playing, so we can hear Cole all by himself.
“Tailspin” (blues)
“Halfway to Dawn”
for comparison (Lewis’s suggestion): The King Cole Trio 1947, “Blues In My Shower” (blues in F)
for comparison (Kenny’s suggestion): Lester Young, Nat Cole & Buddy Rich: “Back to the Land” (blues) - Also worth hearing because it includes passages of Cole playing completely unaccompanied.
for comparison to “Halfway to Dawn”: The King Cole Trio, “Laguna Mood” (1947) (Lewis’s suggestion)
Owing to Nat’s close friendship with Norman, it’s entirely likely that he would have been happy to lay down a pair of such tracks, with the understanding that, if they were to be issued, his name wouldn’t be on them. If so, it was likely that he recorded them in August 1947, at the same time he was making a Trio instrumental album for Capitol to be titled King Cole at the Piano. In fact, he recorded all eight tracks for the 10” album on August 13, at the Radio Recorders studio in Los Angeles, and we surmise that he recorded the two Jazz Scene unaccompanied tracks there on the same day.
To this day, it’s merely an educated guess - and a general consensus - that Cole is the pianist on “Tailspin” and “Halfway to Dawn,” although the former contains some tellingly iconic Cole blues phrases. Eric Comstock, the pianist/singer/scholar (who makes a point to tell audiences that he had his first date with his future wife on Cole’s birthday) feels, “Of the two, ‘Halfway’ is more Nat-like to my ears.” (Other listeners feel that the blues “Tailspin” is even more Nat-like.)
There’s more background in my biography of Nat Cole, Straighten Up and Fly Right. One interesting point is that because of the Jazz Scene project, and the association with Granz, Cole and Strayhorn formally crossed paths, which is how Strayhorn decided that Cole should be the artist to introduce a song he’d written about ten years earlier, which, as you’ve undoubtedly guessed, was “Lush Life.”
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F662a0b09-6f83-42bd-8417-0f681fc84147_775x752.jpeg)
One final reason for bringing this up today - I happened to be checking The Jazz Scene CD set on Tom Lord’s The Jazz Discography, and when I looked up “Halfway to Dawn,” I came across this. Now I feel vindicated!
(Special thanks as always to King Cole researcher & discographer Jordan Taylor.)
coming next:
The Dinah Washington Centennial -
A Complete Annotated Filmography
Part One:
The “Showtime at the Apollo” Films (1954)
Part Two:
Bandstand Revue (1955)
Crescendo (1957)
Part Three:
Jazz on a Summer’s Day (filmed 1957, released 1958)
Part Four
CBC (1959)
The Singin’, Swingin’ Years (1959)
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Will, again you make me spend money either on Discogs or eBay-now I gotta get "The Jazz Scene" but many thanks!
You reminded me that I own the CD copy of "Jazz Scene" and haven't listened to it for a while...