Natalie Cole RIP

[fasstrack]

https://www.yahoo.com/ She was 65. Very sad indeed.

This (2000?) recording: Ask a Woman Who Knows, with arrangements by Alan Broadbent and others, was beautiful IMO. http://www.amazon.com/Ask-Woman-Knows-Natalie-Cole/dp/B0000646GK 

Edited January 1, 2016 by fasstrack

[HutchFan]

Sad news indeed.

[Hardbopjazz]

Sad. She had a lovely voice. RIP, Natalie.

[gmonahan]

I didn't realize she was 65.  I suppose I always thought of her as the "young" daughter of her father, but he's been gone now for 50 years!  I liked her singing very much.  RIP.

 

gregmo

[king ubu]

Anyone can recommend me anything really good by her? All I heard so far (mostly that kitsch album dedicated to her father's music) was way too much on the kitsch side of things.

[fasstrack]

16 minutes ago, king ubu said:

Anyone can recommend me anything really good by her? All I heard so far (mostly that kitsch album dedicated to her father's music) was way too much on the kitsch side of things.

See OP above for a link to Ask a Woman who Knows. Ostensibly a dedication to Sarah Vaughan, it has several beautiful ballads (like I Haven't got Anything Better to Do--actually originally recorded by Carmen McCrae) arranged by the likes of Alan Broadbent. No kitsch here and she sounds wonderful.

[king ubu]

Oh, sorry, had actually read that post yesterday but had already forgotten again ... done ordered a copy!

[king ubu]

Just got "Ask a Woman Who Knows" (Japanese edition, +1, 14 tracks, the bonus one is a very nice one by Bob Dorough, "I've Got Just About Everything") - it's indeed a most tasteful record, maybe a tad too tasteful, but time will tell about that ... anyway, thanks again for the recommendation!

Btw, Broadbent only arranged two (I think, reading the credits is a drag) of the songs, most are by Rob Mounsey (new name to me), three or four (including the Dorough track) by John Clayton.

[JSngry]

Of all the things that could have gone horribly wrong here, none of them do. In these times and in this place, that's far from a minor triumph.

 

Not only is the pitch spot on, so is the, and I hate to use this word because of the weapon-ness it's had over the years, "diction". Ironically(?), that's what Lawrence Welk complimented her father on, and in that context, you know, just what did he mean by that, huh? But in this case, I mean that she's clearly studied the lyric and chooses to present it with this quite specific "neutral" type of articulation. She could have slurred it around, twanged it, wove it in and out, and that would have been one interpretation, .but she chose to go here with it, and I think she did it excellently. So, perhaps unlike Welk, kudos not for what she chose to do, but to how excellently she did it..natural yet perfect yet natural. It don't sound like nobody but Natalie Cole.

You try it. Go ahead, I dare ya'!

[JSngry]

I recall when Natalie first broke with "This Will Be" and all that...there was a Rolling Stone(?) interview where she said something like she didn't really know Aretha Franklin's work, that's not what she really listened to, and she caught all kinds of hell for that, because she was having hits with Aretha's "voice" when Areethat wasn't doing well on the charts at all.

It had to have been a giant head trip being Natalie Cole over the years. I have all kinds of respect (no pun intended) for her surviving and keeping on working on figuring it out.

 

 

[fasstrack]

On ‎1‎/‎14‎/‎2016 at 6:23 PM, king ubu said:

Just got "Ask a Woman Who Knows" (Japanese edition, +1, 14 tracks, the bonus one is a very nice one by Bob Dorough, "I've Got Just About Everything") - it's indeed a most tasteful record, maybe a tad too tasteful, but time will tell about that ... anyway, thanks again for the recommendation!

Btw, Broadbent only arranged two (I think, reading the credits is a drag) of the songs, most are by Rob Mounsey (new name to me), three or four (including the Dorough track) by John Clayton.

Mounsey's been around a long time. They're good charts all. Those guys all know what they're doing. My favorite track is I Haven't Got Anything Better to Do. She really nails it. I forget who arranged that one.

The recording was supposedly conceived as a Sarah Vaughan tribute, but I Haven't.... is Carmen all the way.

[JSngry]

Another example of how she kept digging into herself to find something her own, no matter the idiom.

 

Here she is in 1977, flush in the middle of her first wave of R&B success, playing the role of Nat's Baby Girl in a de facto Capitol Summit Meeting (Surrogates Allowed). I mean, her pitch and time are all "ok", but she is so not feeling any of "that" except as, maybe, oh this is my dad's bag, how funny it all is!

From there to where she ended up, as a singer who showed some real understanding of what all "that" really was, and getting there from being a credible R & B hitmaker who could have played Rehab Love Me and gotten all Diva-ish about it, I say credit is due for both intent and result.

From here:

 

 

to here:

 

She died young-ish, but I have to say that age worked in her favor musically, probably because she allowed it to. Opportunity rather than threat.

[John L]

These posts have been very interesting.  Thank you.  I never considered myself to be much of a Natalie Cole fan, but I see that I have clearly underestimated her talents. 

RIP

[JSngry]

She was easily underestimated, I think. I began playing in "real" R & B bands right when she broke, and you know, she had a great voice and make some great records, but Gladys Knight, she wasn't, ya' know, and never mind Aretha. Laura Lee? Not even breathing the same air, ok?

And then she went under for a while and finally came back with that Unforgettable album, and you know, that's a pretty strong album if you overlook the cheese factor, and you want to, you need to, overlook the cheese factor, because this isn't Keeny G necroraping Louis Armstrong, or Sinatra Tecnozombying a pop culture he helped invent and no longer knew even by scent, this is a daughter finally/"finally" coming to grips with her father, this is biophsych 101, so you need to overlook the cheese factor, but dammit..can you? Not that I've been able to, came real close once or twice, but...nope.

However - then she seems to have just gone about the business of becoming a very good singer.

Easier said than done, that's all I'm saying, and I think she did it. So, hey.

You tell me - does this sound like a person who has any sense of self-ownership at all?

 

Great dance record, but there's no "person" in there, at least not that I can here, and compared to her earlier hits, which were essentially shallow but real (enough), that's pretty damn dark.

So where she ended up, forget about "great artistry" or anything, when I hear her later work, I her somebody who is fully aware of where they are, who they are, and why they are.

[JSngry]