The picnic scene in Citizen Kane features a New Orleans jazz band whose sultry love songs and "jungle" mood counterpoint the torrid relationship between Kane and Susan. Orson recounted that the inspiration for that part of the script and the jazz band in particular was the King Cole Trio though he knew that Nat was too much of a class act to appear in the film in such a fashion and didn't bother to ask.
Cole was born in Montgomery and raised in Chicago and learned the piano from his mother, the church organist and wife to a Baptist minister. Nathaniel Cole took professional lessons and took up different styles from jazz to gospel to western classical. He formed a jazz band with his elder, bass-playing brother Eddie at sixteen and recorded a couple of songs as Eddie Cole's Solid Swingers. This jazz band didn't really work out and had Nat playing with the national tour of Eubie Blake's Broadway Revue "Shuffle Along". When the tour faltered, Cole was stranded in Long Beach where he would form his Trio by the age of 18. With Oscar Moore on guitar and Wesley Prince on bass, the band featured an atypical tight lineup at the height of the Big Band era. They played gigs at local bars and recorded over a hundred radio transcriptions. Their radio debut was in 1938 for NBC's Blue Network followed by a spot on the same network's Swing Soiree that helped the King Cole Trio garner the roots of what would become national fame.
Where Nat's piano playing had been aggressive and energetic in his first band in order to make up for the lack of skills of his band mates, he was able to cool down and stretch and balance his skills thanks to the rapport between he and his two bandmates. In particular, his connection with Oscar Moore was spellbinding and the two accented eachother's solos perfectly. The music was usually accompanied by the two or three-part harmonies of the band members. Occasionally, they'd feature a guest female vocalist or a guest vocal choir (where they were more of a listless backing band) or perhaps Nat would sing himself, such as on "Sweet Lorraine", but the band was at its best with their own harmonies and plenty of room to just riff.
Here is the discography surrounding Nat King Cole's debut recordings:
The Chronological Classics: Nat King Cole 1936-1940
The Complete Early Transcriptions of The King Cole Trio: 1938-1941
"Rib Town Shuffle" by The King Cole Trio
"Let's Get Happy Tonight" by The King Cole Trio
Pass the Headphones!!
No comments:
Post a Comment