buyers - Nat Cole Box?

[tranemonk]

I'm up in the air on this one... I didn't get the Mosaic set and regret it....

What is everyone doing?

[GA Russell]

I have 5 Nat Cole LPs and 4 CDs, and that's more than enough for me. Eleven is just too much of the guy IMO.

edit: That's not including three Christmas albums!

Edited March 18, 2006 by GA Russell

[jazzbo]

I would buy this when and if my financial situation improves.

This and the Mosaic box are two very different animals I think. I have a portion of this on other Capitol releases. .. .I like Nat enough to be a bit fanatical and I like Bear Family material. It will be some time before I'm buying a set though (necessity not desire is the factor).

[J.A.W.]

This and the Mosaic box are two very different animals I think.

That's right, the Mosaic was jazz-oriented; it had all of Nat King Cole's trio dates, while the Bear Family seems to have his popular sides, with orchestras and all that. Very little overlap - if any - I would think.

[brownie]

Got the Mosaic box for a pretty reasonable price and its content keeps me happy. Don't need more Nat King Cole!

[Claude]

Why is the Bear Family box so expensive ($250 for 11 CDs on CD Universe)?

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?...ic&frm=lk_jzmtz

[sidewinder]

I am still slowly working my way through the Nat Cole vinyl set so I have enough for now !

[JSngry]

Wouldn't mind having it at all, actually. Just don't have the buckage right now.

Actually, this period of "pop" Cole sits rather well with me. Not all of it, granted, but a whole lot of it. Besides, Cole's main arranger for his pop sides for the first half of the 1950s was Nelson Riddle, and that's nothing but a plus in my book. Always a pleasure to listen for Riddle's little harmonic quirks masquerading as "Easy Listening".

But besides Riddle, you've got, simply put, one of the finest pre-rock Pop vocalists of all time at the peak of his game in some totally appropriate and tasteful (usually) settings. The only reason to not at least consider it is if you don't enjoy hearing good, often great, songs well-sung. "Jazz" is besides the point here!

[Chuck Nessa]

If anyone can supply burns I'll be happy.

[Jim R]

Too much "filler" for me (most of the better songs have been available elsewhere); and BF sets (although I'm sure they're well done) are kind of pricey unless you're sure you need a whole set like this.

imho

BTW, I think the Mosaic set may even be worse in terms of filler/novelty type stuff. I mean, it all sounds pretty good, but 18 CD's gives you an awful lot of very forgettable songs (though well-performed). I listen to the Mosaic very selectively (and I got it for a steal, or I probably never would have bought it).

And I DO love nat.

[J.A.W.]

Too much "filler" for me (most of the better songs have been available elsewhere); and BF sets (although I'm sure they're well done) are kind of pricey unless you're sure you need a whole set like this.

imho

BTW, I think the Mosaic set may even be worse in terms of filler/novelty type stuff. I mean, it all sounds pretty good, but 18 CD's gives you an awful lot of very forgettable songs (though well-performed). I listen to the Mosaic very selectively (and I got it for a steal, or I probably never would have bought it).

And I DO love nat.

I don't have the Mosaic set, but doesn't it contain mostly jazz-oriented trio dates? What kind of "filler/novelty-type stuff" does it have, non-trio sides, or?

Edited March 19, 2006 by J.A.W.

[Stereojack]

Why is the Bear Family box so expensive ($250 for 11 CDs on CD Universe)?

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?...ic&frm=lk_jzmtz

Bear Family sets are always expensive, but they are lavish in the extreme. Generally, the pricing is about $20.00 per disc, and there is usually a hard cover "coffee table" style book which is priced as an additional 1 or 2 CD's. The books in recent sets I've seen are amazing - 100 or more pages loaded with full color pictures, album covers, label shots, foreign releases. lengthy essays by well known writers, full discographical details, etc. I've got many other Bear Family sets, and they are the last word on any given artist.

As much as I love Nat, I've got so much of this already on vinyl and CD that I won't be springing for this.

[Jim R]

Too much "filler" for me (most of the better songs have been available elsewhere); and BF sets (although I'm sure they're well done) are kind of pricey unless you're sure you need a whole set like this.

imho

BTW, I think the Mosaic set may even be worse in terms of filler/novelty type stuff. I mean, it all sounds pretty good, but 18 CD's gives you an awful lot of very forgettable songs (though well-performed). I listen to the Mosaic very selectively (and I got it for a steal, or I probably never would have bought it).

And I DO love nat.

I don't have the Mosaic set, but doesn't it contain mostly jazz-oriented trio dates? What kind of "filler/novelty-type stuff" does it have, non-trio sides, or?

We just switched to a new iMac (and a broadband connection! ), so I can't pull up my database right now, but that set contains a ton of (forgettable) novelty compositions that have probably never been done by anyone since. Cute little numbers that were hip in the 40's, like what Slim Gaillard and people like that were doing. So yes, great trio, great musicians, I'm just lamenting the amount of less-than-great material they recorded. As I say, it's well-executed and fine in small doses, but I wouldn't have wanted to pay $15/$16 per disc for it, and certainly not $19/$20 like this BF set.

Come to think of it, I think the song titles are listed in one of those "Mosaic discography" threads, if you want to see what I mean.

And again, I really do love Nat (and Oscar Moore!). It's hard not to like a lot of the material based on who's performing it. There's just SO much of it in that set...

[J.A.W.]

Here's an interesting post in the "other" Nat King Cole Bear Family box thread about the contents of the set.

[J.A.W.]

Too much "filler" for me (most of the better songs have been available elsewhere); and BF sets (although I'm sure they're well done) are kind of pricey unless you're sure you need a whole set like this.

imho

BTW, I think the Mosaic set may even be worse in terms of filler/novelty type stuff. I mean, it all sounds pretty good, but 18 CD's gives you an awful lot of very forgettable songs (though well-performed). I listen to the Mosaic very selectively (and I got it for a steal, or I probably never would have bought it).

And I DO love nat.

I don't have the Mosaic set, but doesn't it contain mostly jazz-oriented trio dates? What kind of "filler/novelty-type stuff" does it have, non-trio sides, or?

We just switched to a new iMac (and a broadband connection! ), so I can't pull up my database right now, but that set contains a ton of (forgettable) novelty compositions that have probably never been done by anyone since. Cute little numbers that were hip in the 40's, like what Slim Gaillard and people like that were doing. So yes, great trio, great musicians, I'm just lamenting the amount of less-than-great material they recorded. As I say, it's well-executed and fine in small doses, but I wouldn't have wanted to pay $15/$16 per disc for it, and certainly not $19/$20 like this BF set.

Come to think of it, I think the song titles are listed in one of those "Mosaic discography" threads, if you want to see what I mean.

And again, I really do love Nat (and Oscar Moore!). It's hard not to like a lot of the material based on who's performing it. There's just SO much of it in that set...

Thanks for the explanation.

[Guest Chaney]

I don't have the Mosaic set, but doesn't it contain mostly jazz-oriented trio dates? What kind of "filler/novelty-type stuff" does it have, non-trio sides, or?

For what it's worth...

December 22, 1991

RECORDINGS VIEW

Three Testaments To Nat (King) Cole

By PETER WATROUS

The career of Nat (King) Cole is as good a place as any to view the sprawl of American popular music in the 20th century. Most worthwhile musical roads -- orchestral and small-group jazz, for example, and the distinctly American style of popular singing invented by Louis Armstrong -- led up to Cole, and he left a nicely contradictory legacy: both elevator music and hundreds of worthy musical disciples, from George Shearing to Ray Charles and countless other singers. Even today's black pop, 40 or 50 years after the fact, owes much of its upward mobility to Cole.

The amount of his work alone warrants attention. This year three box sets have arrived. The largest is the mammoth "Complete Capitol Recordings of the Nat King Cole Trio" (Mosaic 138; 18 CD's, 27 LP's; Mosaic Records, 35 Melrose Place, Stamford, Conn. 06902). Then there are two relatively puny sets: "Nat King Cole, the Trio Recordings" (Laserlight/Delta Music 15 915; five CD's; 2275 South Carmelina Avenue, Los Angeles, Calif. 90064) and "The Complete Early Transcriptions of the King Cole Trio: 1938-41" (Vintage Jazz Classics; VJC-1026/27/28/29-2; four CD's). If anybody wonders about the viability of this music, the Cole estate makes more than half a millon dollars a year in royalties.

These recordings demonstrate two things. First, Cole, who died in 1965, was extremely consistent; he made everything from novelty jive pieces to nursery rhymes to "Sweet Lorraine" swing hard and seem faultless. Second, Cole, who in 1938 was one of the first blacks to have a national radio show, remained unthreatening to white listeners. In his diction, dress and the sort of music he made, he created an acceptable image meant for both races and all classes.

Observers familar with the early part of Cole's career say that he rarely sang in public. With their emphasis on Cole's singing ability, these recordings show that he was already thinking about how to use the medium of radio to reach a broader audience than the one which just wanted to hear him improvise at the piano.

The Laserlight and VJC collections, as well as a significant part of the Mosaic set, were transcription recordings, not intended for commercial sale. In the late 30's and early 40's, radio programs rarely used commercial recordings, instead broadcasting live performances. To fill time, the stations bought recordings from transcription services, and for the first part of his career, Cole and the trio recorded reams of such material. For the most part it's perfect. It is hard to name another group that was as consistent and prolific, and the trio, playing effortlessly, made some of the richest recordings of American music.

Much of it is improvised. Comparison between versions of the same song -- the group recorded the same material for several companies -- finds entirely different arrangements of tunes like "What Can I Say After I Say I'm Sorry" and "How High the Moon," with the first guitarist Oscar Moore improvising hooks and lines that seem as if they would be good enough to repeat. The earliest material, found in the VJC box, is taken from the Standard Transcription company. (The Laserlight collection draws from the C.P. MacGregor company, the Mosaic mostly from Capitol Records.) At first the trio is a bit uncertain about what it should be doing, with corny trio vocals and other odd additions, but Cole quickly finds out what he's good at, and the music settles down with him as lead singer.

Among jazz musicians and critics, Cole is held in high esteem for his improvisation, which is viewed as a bridge between swing pianists and be-boppers. He assimilated the playing of both Earl Hines and Teddy Wilson, two vastly different pianists, and his improvisation took the best of both, using Hines's angular, convoluted and percussive left-hand figures with Wilson's unearthly lightness in his right hand.

Harmonically, too, Cole is without parallel in jazz, displaying a regular chordal sensibility, full of pastoral, modernist colors, that hasn't really been absorbed to this day. In the trio's arrangements one hears a deep blues feeling and a small group response to orchestration, with the riffs and unison lines usually played by a big band now articulated by piano and guitar. Later the sound was appropriated for the ambient music heard in supermarkets. But at the time, Mr. Cole's dedication to wit and invention turned even the most sentimental music -- nursery rhymes meant for a children's album, for example -- into swinging yet controlled workouts.

But it's in his singing that Cole becomes a complex figure. One view is that he capitulated to the evils of the capitalist system. But for a good portion of his career, Cole ignored the distinction between entertainment and art. He produced a music that was sophisticated, full of detail and resources, and emotionally satisfying. An endless stream of standards -- "It's Only a Paper Moon," "What Can I Say After I Say I'm Sorry," "Three Little Words,""Too Marvelous for Words" -- show how adept he was at giving these songs a realism that hadn't been heard before.

The Mosaic box, by its size (348 tunes, ranging from 1942 to 1961), gives a good opportunity to hear Cole searching for his new, wider audience. By the middle CD's, the home-grown Dada -- tunes like "Ooh, Kickeroonie" and "My Baby Likes to Bebop" -- drops out. So do instrumental numbers, replaced by sessions with strings, among other things.

Though the set looks like an archivist's dream, it is surprisingly listenable, never academic. On a practical level, the producers have avoided too many alternate takes. But it's Cole's triumph that the music still works -- witness the success of his daughter, Natalie, remaking his material on her recent album "Unforgettable" -- and that he knew exactly what combination of swing, vocal texture and musical imagination were necessary to make music that celebrated the pleasures and pains of being alive.

[tranemonk]

thanks for the info....

I'm nervous that I seem to be one of the few here that is very interested in this set... (esp. since I missed out on the Mosaic...)

[Guest Chaney]

I own The Piano Style of Nat King Cole and Night Lights (purchased mainly because of the presence of Nelson Riddle) and the two-CD set, The Billy May Sessions.

As I don't find Cole to be vocally compelling, like, let's say, Sinatra, what I have will do me just fine.

Edited March 19, 2006 by Chaney

[J.A.W.]

I own The Piano Style of Nat King Cole and Night Lights (purchased mainly because of the presence of Nelson Riddle) and the two-CD set, The Billy May Sessions.

As I don't find Cole to be vocally compelling, like, let's say, Sinatra, what I have will do me just fine.

An excellent CD with 18 of Nat King Cole's 1943-1947 and 1949 piano trio sides is The Best of the Nat King Cole Trio: The Instrumental Classics, Capitol 98288. The CD was released in 1992; the transfers were done by Jay Ranellucci and Malcolm Addey. Highly recommended!

[Jim R]

thanks for the info....

I'm nervous that I seem to be one of the few here that is very interested in this set... (esp. since I missed out on the Mosaic...)

Again, don't base anything on the fact that you missed out on the Mosaic. This set contains a different side of Nat's career.

I think it's great that people are interested, btw. I wouldn't have expected a lot of folks to be interested in 11 CD's/$200 of late Nat, but I'm among those who enjoys a lot of Nat's later work (just don't need or want this much), so it's nice to see this box at least getting some serious consideration.

How long do BF sets remain in print? I might recommend that before taking the plunge, it would be pretty easy to find a disc or two (perhaps used, or at least at good prices) of some of the best of that material, and see what it does for you.

[tranemonk]

Not knowing the licensing issues (esp. globally) .. What's the odds are that Mosaic/blue note is going to release some of this stuff at some point in the future?

I'm finding this decision agonizing...

thanks for the info....

I'm nervous that I seem to be one of the few here that is very interested in this set... (esp. since I missed out on the Mosaic...)

Again, don't base anything on the fact that you missed out on the Mosaic. This set contains a different side of Nat's career.

I think it's great that people are interested, btw. I wouldn't have expected a lot of folks to be interested in 11 CD's/$200 of late Nat, but I'm among those who enjoys a lot of Nat's later work (just don't need or want this much), so it's nice to see this box at least getting some serious consideration.

How long do BF sets remain in print? I might recommend that before taking the plunge, it would be pretty easy to find a disc or two (perhaps used, or at least at good prices) of some of the best of that material, and see what it does for you.

[Stereojack]

Not knowing the licensing issues (esp. globally) .. What's the odds are that Mosaic/blue note is going to release some of this stuff at some point in the future?

Unlikely, since Mosaic usually focuses on material that is not currently available elsewhere, and, also, this set is not primarily a jazz set. Much of the material would most likely be categorized as "pop". There is a fair amount of Nat Cole already available on Capitol, including, I believe, a lot of what's on this set. Bear Family's approach is not necessarily to offer rare or unavailable material, but to provide an exhaustive and comprehensive package for the hard core fan. These sets invariably include outtakes, breakdowns, non-LP singles, good and sometimes bad.

[RDK]

Seriously doubt that Mosaic will ever release this stuff due to its relative lack of "jazz" content during this period of NKC's career.

Seriously, Bear is a highly commendable, legit label. If you love this period of Nat Cole, this will likely be the only place you will ever find the "complete" recordings in one box. Bear is expensive, though, and 11 discs is a lot of NKC. I've no doubt that someone will soon come out with a cheaper, rip-off box (though probably not as complete). You really don't have a lot of options here. Do you want the box or not?

[Quincy]

An excellent CD with 18 of Nat King Cole's 1943-1947 and 1949 piano trio sides is The Best of the Nat King Cole Trio: The Instrumental Classics, Capitol 98288. The CD was released in 1992; the transfers were done by Jay Ranellucci and Malcolm Addey. Highly recommended!

Always great to learn of a high quality more modest option out there in these type of threads, thanks! And Malcom Addey on the credits too eh? I'll put it on my hunting list.

[Tjazz]

I think the title and poll should mention BEAR FAMILY RECORDS.