NAT "KING" COLE - Year by Year - Part 3

Thank you.

Hi Peggy!

It sounds to me like that's faulty playback. Should knock that pitch down.

"Remember friends: Always Buy Chesterfield. Because they're milder."

 

Speaking of sped-up versions, I think one of my entries on the RADIO list is just a "fast" duplicate of an entry from 7 1/2 months earlier.

I am talking about The Man On The Little White Keys from Feb. 1, 1945
AFRS Mail Call #132 introduced by Dinah Shore. I commented in my review of the LP The Forgotten Years about the very apparent use of applause tracks. Now I am fairly sure that Dinah and the AFRS Mail Call radio guys were playing Disc Jockey and used a transcription recording made for the AFRS Mail Call #96 of June 14, 1944. And for all I know the original may not be live, but a transcription recording introduced by Walter Winchell as heard on the CD from Vintage Jazz called Straighten Up and Fly Right.

The best sound for The Man On The Little White Keys is on the Vintage Jazz CD, with better speed than the LP. One also hear the Dinah Shore Mail Call at Times Past Old Time Radio Archives. Move down the page to the Mail Call entries and the date 1945-02-14_132_Dinah_Shore_Dorothy.

You can click the text and listen on the Yahoo Media Player (not very good sound at all) or you can choose to download the program by clicking the ARROW on the left. This has somewhat better sound.

 

I forgot to mention that the second number on the Mail Call program #132 is a harmonica group. I exercised my finger by hitting the stop button, and I haven't gone back to hear the rest of the program yet.

Variety shows have always been a hodge-podge as Ed Sullivan used to go from an opera singer to some jugglers spinning plates on pool cues -- or something like that. When Nat King Cole first played the London Palladium in 1950, one of the Music Hall acts he followed was a duo of Larry Adler, Virtuoso of the Harmonica and Paul Draper, Dance Stylist. Uh, if any of you ever find a Youtube of this act, don't tell me.

 

Would you like to see the programme for the 2 week engagement at the London Palladium in September 1950? I will get that scanned and post. I think that there is some historical interest even in the advertising pages.

 

Why sho'.

 

Not counting the covers, there were 10 pages in the London Palladium programme with pages 4 & 6 listing the acts and the order they appeared. The 2 week engagement started September 4, 1950.


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Pg4...


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Pg8...
& the back cover which tells you where to drive your Morris car for servicing.


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Kind of hard to imagine from our perspective, but the trio did not go over well at all on that tour.

 

You know, I never took notice of that, but since you mentioned it, its sticks out. My version of the show is 13:58. I stretched it out to an even 15 minutes and it sounds so much better.

 

To get an idea of these British variety shows, listen to Lenny Bruce do his bit "The Palladium". Val Parnell is mentioned and the American comic is listed as "funster".

 

Not at all. As they might have put it...

If you want to know why the Beatles went to Hamburg, take a look at what was in London. Nat's BBC concert was 1963 having won over British audiences not all that long before... Nat's popular songs connected by and large but it's probably fair to say Nat of the Trio era did not translate quite as readily for the mainstream audiences over there. It took a bit.

"In the interest of public health this theatre is disinfected throughout with JEYES FLUID."

 

Perhaps not as frontman of a trio (or quartet, really), but Cole won over English audiences well before 1963.

 

Thanks, apileofcole and coleman, for corroborating that the Peggy-Nat episode is sped up.

Here's audio of Nat (and also Nancy Wilson) at the Hollywood Bowl, October 4, 1964. Nat's set starts about 20 minutes in:

http://newstalgia.crooksandliars.com/gordonskene/backstage-weekend-nancy-wilson-and-nat

 

Thank you for this!

I knew Nat Cole was at this benefit, but didn't realized he actually performed.

And with "Hello Dolly!" Fantastic!

 

Holy moly, this is fantastic! Thanks!!

Too bad the entire program is not online. The sound quality is great!

 

Thank you very much, Ridin'High. That is great to hear, and with Nelson Riddle, extra nice.

 

Here's a link to a JET article covering the event:http://books.google.com/books?id=5sADAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA60&dq=jet+%22nat+cole%22&hl=en&ei=hr1STe7wMMmCgAeg3qzOCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Cole photo in the article doesn't look like it was taken at the anti-Prop 14 benefit, appears to be earlier than 1964.

 

After several listens to "Hello, Dolly" it strikes me that it would have fit nicely as the 12th song on the relatively brief L-O-V-E album. That album was a mix of old and new songs (like so many Cole albums), but unlike past sets much of the newer material consisted of contemporary hit songs - "L-O-V-E," "The Girl From Ipanema," "My Kind of Girl," "More." "Hello, Dolly" certainly fits in that respect. The arrangement is also very much in the style of the rest of the album as it gradually intensifies, so that by the second chorus, despite the tame tempo, it really swings. Reminds me of "Thanks to You" somewhat. Be curious to know who wrote the arrangement. One Cole associate told me he thought Dick Wess did it, but I'm not convinced.

I've always thought that L-O-V-E was Cole's answer to the Sinatra-Basie IT MIGHT AS WELL BE SWING, which was released that August, the same month that the "Dolly" chart was written for Cole. Since both sets contained "More," perhaps Cole and Gillette opted not to include "Dolly" (hell, it probably was never considered!) so as to not have the two albums be even more similar than they already were.

 

The Nat King Cole Show on itunes

In cooperation with the Cole Estate, itunes has released four complete episodes of the NKC Show. The 15 minute programs date from January and February, 1957, and my understanding is that more releases are planned. The real gap has always been the 15 minute shows from the late winter/early spring of 1957, so hopefully the next batch of shows will attempt to remedy that.

I've not downloaded the four available shows, so I don't know whether they contain any commercials.

 

Cool! Thanks for the head-up. I'm definitely going to grab these!

 

Anyone know what format and quality specs these iTunes releases are? The video geek here is curious.

 

I only downloaded the first one so far. I was also curious about the quality. This is what the file says:

January 14th, 1957
14:04
Protected MPEG-4 Video file
160.1 MB
Bit rate: 104 kbps

I am not sure if there is more info. Maybe others versed in video specs will know. I thought there may have been some deterioration of the consistency of the sound on parts of it, just on a first listen. Not that I am surprised if that is so. The video quality is about the same as I had seen in other NKC show excerpts on youtube etc. -- so on the low end, again as I would have expected.

This Monday night show has Stuff Smith as the guest. There was one break for a commercial from NBC for two shows coming up later that night, a game show and a drama from Robert Montgomery Presents.