Nathaniel Adams Cole, born in 1917 and raised in Chicago, wasn't a popular singer from the start. That's just the direction in which he turned, after a solid tutelage in jazz.
We think of him as the velvety-voiced singer whose unique timbre and styling made his voice a distillation of beauty itself, as he sang 'Mona Lisa', 'Nature Boy', 'When I Fall in Love' and other great standards associated with him.
But there must have been steel-like strength there, under his casual, so-relaxed exterior. Here was the first black singer to be given his very own radio show, back in 1948. And then, in 1956, he was given 'The Nat King Cole Show', the very first networked show hosted by a Black American. The show was moderately successful with viewers -- it failed after just one year because no national sponsor dared pick up a show with a Black host.
This was the same year, after all, in which audience members in a concert jumped on stage and beat-up Nat because he dared play before them with an integrated band. The performer, and 'The Nat King Cole Show' itself, were both ahead of their time. After the show folded, Nat said "Madison Avenue is Afraid of the Dark".
Well, the show lives on, and this documentary, though only 58 minutes long, is a great tribute to it, and its host.
In it Nat sings 20 songs, which are, refreshingly, presented complete and without voice-overs. The narration, by Dennis Haysbert, is brief and factual; emotion does however come via informal interviews with Nat's widow, his three daughters and his brother. These are very natural -- unguarded and genuinely moving.
In a bid to attract that elusive national sponsor, Nat and his writer/producer/director Bob Henry invited some illustrious guest-artists, who appeared for free just for the sake of making the epochal show a success. It didn't work, but here we have wonderful guest-appearances by the 11-year-old Billy Preston on Hammond-organ (he went on to work with some obscure British groups such as The Beatles), the Mills Brothers and Ella Fitzgerald.
Watch for a great appearance by a very young Sammy Davis Jnr, who begins by impersonating Nat -- till Nat joins in and impersonates Sammy impersonating Nat. And wait too for the appearance of the too-often underestimated American songwriter Johnny Mercer. Here too, as a feature-artist on bongo, is Jack Costanzo, who you'll remember from the genre-defining LP 'Caught in the Act with Frances Faye'.
There are plenty of piano solos to remind us that Nat was a top jazz artist before he went into mainstream popular singing. I'm glad he did. For me, Nat was Frank Sinatra's equal as the top popular singers of the 1950s -- and Nat had a very special, intimate style all his own which will never fade.
'The Nat King Cole Show' looks as if it was taped, not filmed, but while it looks fairly low-res, the black-and-white images are certainly very acceptable. We suddenly go into colour for one song, 'Mona Lisa', but it's in similar quality, and in fact I only noticed the image had gone into colour when the clip had almost finished.
Interviews are of course modern colour footage. Sound is a very good two-channel mono PCM, which is free of distortion and has a very natural ambience. There is also a remixed and much richer Surround channel in 5.1 Stereo which somehow managed to project Nat's voice out from the background. On this disc, I prefer the more natural, if slightly thinner sound of the PCM track.
The only 'extra' is a handful of pics taken of Nathaniel during his television show.
This is a great documentary -- a good mix of facts but with the emphasis squarely on performance. And what a wonderful performer Nat 'King' Cole was. His casual, intimate style belies the racist society in which he had to work. Watching and listening to him, you really believe that he was, as he sings in the final song in this program, 'Sitting On Top of The World'.
