Straighten Up And Fly Right

One of the most popular and memorable American musicians of the 20th century, Nat King Cole (1919-65) is remembered today as both a pianist and a singer, a feat rarely accomplished in the world of popular music. Now, in this complete life and times biography, author Will Friedwald offers a new take on this fascinating musician, framing him first as a bandleader and then as a star. In Cole's early phase, Friedwald explains, his primary task of keeping his trio going was just as much of a focus for him as his own playing and singing, always a collective or group performance. In the second act, Cole's collaborators were more likely to be arranger-conductors like Nelson Riddle and Gordon Jenkins, rather than his sidemen on bass and guitar. In the first act, his sidemen were equals, in the second phase, his collaborators were tasked exclusively with putting the focus on him, making him sound good, while being largely invisible themselves. Friedwald brings his full musical knowledge to bear in putting the man in the work, demonstrating how this duality appears over and over again in Cole's life and career: jazz vs. pop, solo vs. trio, piano vs. voice, wife number one (Nadine) vs. wife number two (Maria), the good songs vs. the less-than-good songs, the rhythm numbers vs. the ballads, the funny songs and novelties vs. the "serious" songs of love and loss, Cole as an advocate for the Great American Songbook vs. Cole the intrepid explorer of other options: world music, rhythm & blues, country & western. Cole was different from his contemporaries in other ways; for roughly ten years after the war, the majority of hitmakers on the pop charts were veterans of the big band experience, from Sinatra on down.

Thirty years of collecting and 15 years of research have resulted in this discography that features all known recordings, transcriptions, and films made by Cole until 1950, when his jazz style faded away, and a selection of his later jazz-related trio sides. It includes for the first time Cole's unknown 16 transcriptions of his Wild Root broadcasts. This volume documents the development of a gifted pianist into a ballad-singing star and leader of the most famous jazz trio of the 1940s. All routes and recording activities by Cole and his fellow musicians from 1936 to the 1950s are chronicled here. Nat King Cole is widely known as a singer of unforgettable fame, but that he was a true King of Jazz Piano in its heyday and the inventor of today's piano trios is almost forgotten. This discography gives all details of the King Cole Trio's activities, listing recording sessions, available broadcasts on discs, film soundtracks, and guest appearances by the trio or by Cole alone, on such shows as Jubilee, Command Performance, Supper Club, Mail Call, and Kraft Music Hall. A special listing is included of those occasions when Cole participated as unknown or unnamed pianist on radio transcriptions for singers like Anita Boyer, Anita O'Day, The Dreamers, The Barrie Sisters, Bonnie Lake, Rose Murphy, Maxine Johnson, and Juanelda Carter. In addition, the book includes the Cole Trio's engagement routes with exact dates if known, names of promoters, and much more. The biographical portion is a fascinating period piece of Jazz-age memorabilia.

Traces the musical career of the jazz singer, from the formation of his jazz trio to his television show, and describes his desire to battle segregation by playing to all audiences.

This exhaustively researched biography of the great pianist and singer Nat King Cole delves into his storied musical career and life.

The author of the magisterial A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers now approaches the great singers and their greatest work in an innovative and revelatory way: through considering their finest albums, which is the format in which this music was most resonantly organized and presented to its public from the 1940s until the very recent decline of the CD. It is through their albums that Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, and the rest of the glorious honor roll of jazz and pop singers have been most tellingly and lastingly appreciated, and the history of the album itself, as Will Friedwald sketches it, can now be seen as a crucial part of musical history. We come to understand that, at their finest, albums have not been mere collections of individual songs strung together arbitrarily but organic phenomena in their own right. A Sinatra album, a Fitzgerald album, was planned and structured to show these artists at their best, at a specific moment in their artistic careers. Yet the albums Friedwald has chosen to anatomize go about their work in a variety of ways. There are studio and solo albums: Lee’s Black Coffee, June Christy’s Something Cool, Cassandra Wilson’s Belly of the Sun. There are brilliant collaborations: famous ones—Tony Bennett and Bill Evans, Louis Armstrong and Oscar Peterson—and wonderful surprises like Doris Day and Robert Goulet singing Annie Get Your Gun. There are theme albums—Dinah Washington singing Fats Waller, Maxine Sullivan singing Andy Razaf, Margaret Whiting singing Jerome Kern, Barb Jungr singing Bob Dylan, and the sublime Jo Stafford singing American and Scottish folk songs. There are also stunning concert albums like Ella in Berlin, Sarah in Japan, Lena at the Waldorf, and, of course, Judy at Carnegie Hall. All the greats are on hand, from Kay Starr and Carmen McRae to Jimmy Scott and Della Reese (Della Della Cha Cha Cha). And, from out of left field, the astounding God Bless Tiny Tim. Each of the fifty-seven albums discussed here captures the artist at a high point, if not at the expected moment, of her or his career. The individual cuts are evaluated, the sequencing explicated, the songs and songwriters heralded; anecdotes abound of how songs were born and how artists and producers collaborated. And in appraising each album, Friedwald balances his own opinions with those of musicians, listeners, and critics. A monumental achievement, The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums is an essential book for lovers of American jazz and popular music.

Throughout history, traditional cultures have recognized the role of storytelling in teaching values to children. This user-friendly, hands-on guide to using storytelling and folktales in character education provides not only a rationale for this approach, it includes stories. These twelve stories are fun, time- and audience-tested, and accessible to a wide range of listeners, from preschool to high school. The tales are enhanced by suggested activities or informal lesson plans, source notes, and extensive bibliographies that point the reader to additional sources of folktales suitable for character education. Book jacket.

All great music has a birthplace. Temples of Sound tells the stories of the legendary studios where musical genius and a magical space came together to capture some of the most exciting jazz, pop, funk, soul, and country records ever made. From the celebrated Southern studios of Sun and Stax, to the John Coltrane/Miles Davis sessions in producer Rudy Van Gelders living room, to Frank Sinatras swinging cuts at state-of-the-art Capitol Records, each of the 15 profiles in this book brings great music to life at the moment of its creation. With a trove of never-before-seen photographs and fascinating, all-new interviews with the musicians and producers who made the records, Temples of Sound is a rich inspiration for music fans.

Thirty years of collecting and 15 years of research have resulted in this discography that features all known recordings, transcriptions, and films made by Cole until 1950, when his jazz style faded away, and a selection of his later jazz-related trio sides. It includes for the first time Cole's unknown 16 transcriptions of his Wild Root broadcasts. This volume documents the development of a gifted pianist into a ballad-singing star and leader of the most famous jazz trio of the 1940s. All routes and recording activities by Cole and his fellow musicians from 1936 to the 1950s are chronicled here. Nat King Cole is widely known as a singer of unforgettable fame, but that he was a true King of Jazz Piano in its heyday and the inventor of today's piano trios is almost forgotten. This discography gives all details of the King Cole Trio's activities, listing recording sessions, available broadcasts on discs, film soundtracks, and guest appearances by the trio or by Cole alone, on such shows as Jubilee, Command Performance, Supper Club, Mail Call, and Kraft Music Hall. A special listing is included of those occasions when Cole participated as unknown or unnamed pianist on radio transcriptions for singers like Anita Boyer, Anita O'Day, The Dreamers, The Barrie Sisters, Bonnie Lake, Rose Murphy, Maxine Johnson, and Juanelda Carter. In addition, the book includes the Cole Trio's engagement routes with exact dates if known, names of promoters, and much more. The biographical portion is a fascinating period piece of Jazz-age memorabilia.