Track Listings (28) - Disc #1| All Artists: Nat King Cole Title: Penthouse Serenade/The Piano Style of Nat King Cole Members Wishing: 1 Total Copies: 0 Label: Collector's Choice Release Date: 11/6/2007 Album Type: Single Genres: Jazz, Pop, Broadway & Vocalists Style: Vocal Pop Number of Discs: 1 SwapaCD Credits: 1 UPCs: 617742082623, 0617742082623, 061774208262 |
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Search - Nat King Cole :: Penthouse Serenade/The Piano Style of Nat King Cole
 | Nat King Cole Penthouse Serenade/The Piano Style of Nat King Cole Genres: Jazz, Pop, Broadway & Vocalists
Had Nat Cole never sang a note, he still would have ranked among the top jazz pianists of all time. His first record for Capitol, the 1952 10" Penthouse Serenade (later issued as a 12" in 1955, which is the version we ve r... more » |
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Product Description Had Nat Cole never sang a note, he still would have ranked among the top jazz pianists of all time. His first record for Capitol, the 1952 10" Penthouse Serenade (later issued as a 12" in 1955, which is the version we ve released here), was an all-instrumental outing seemingly intended to put his more freewheeling Trio days behind him, a fairly straightforward set of numbers with a moody, contemplative streak that lifted them above the standard cocktail lounge into, well, the penthouse! We ve paired that record with Nat s enthusiastic 1956 return to the keyboard on the all-instrumental The Piano Style of Nat King Cole , a Nelson Riddle-arranged project of which Nat was so fond he picked 16 songs to record, which was a lot in those days (this CD squeezes the two albums in at the outermost limit of 80 minutes). Half accompanied by strings, half accompanied by an orchestra, Nat truly does display his Piano Style at its best here. Similarly Requested CDs
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CD ReviewsNostalgia only Read-Only | New York City | 06/22/2008 (2 out of 5 stars) "Nat King Cole was simultaneously an internationally known singer and a little-known, but excellent, jazz pianist. He started singing with his trio and then gradually developed into a pop vocalist. The present album represents a focus on the piano, after Cole had become very popular.
This disc contains two records (on a single disc). The first, Penthouse Serenade, is a trio recording, but it is not "jazzy" in his original style. The liner notes refer to this as a "more straight-ahead" style, with little improvisation. If you want to hear the melody of these songs played on piano, with little elaboration, this is the disc for you, but I found it to be simply uninteresting. It's as if the producer was afraid that people would turn the record off if Cole stopped playing the melody or used an interesting chord. Overall, it was listenable, but not compelling. The second record, The Piano Style of Nat King Cole, features the piano in Nelson Riddle arrangements for strings or big band. The arrangements are fine, but Cole was apparently limited to playing a single line with the right hand, keeping close to the melody. As a result, it seems to have sucked his personality completely out of the music. In some cases, the melody is embellished with a kind of hippity-hoppity phrasing that made my skin crawl. Whereas Penthouse Serenade was simply dull, I'm afraid that I had to force myself to listen to the whole of the second record. Cole could in fact use both hands to play, and he had great phrasing and sense of harmony. None of that was permitted here, and the result is simply annoying. Had he sung these arrangements, I'm sure the result would have been much better. Fans of Cole's real jazz recordings should stay far away from this disc and seek out his earlier trio work. It may work as background music or as nostalgia for Cole fans, but I'm afraid that it was designed for a commercial audience of many years ago, and now that that audience has changed, the music seems simply dated." |
