Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole

Someone should have done Mr Friedwald a favour and edited this book down. It is very long and very hard going. By page 400 I was bored of being told for every track recorded by Nat Cole, who wrote it, who recorded it first and who played on the track. Add to that some very technical musical analysis and you get a book which is not very accessible for the general reader who wants to know more about Cole and his career.

Will Friedwald , amerikanischer Musikjournalist, hat mit diesem Buch die wohl bisher umfangreichste Chronik über das reiche musikalische Schaffen Nat King Cole‘s geschrieben. In chronologischer Reihenfolge listet Friedwald Cole‘s Plattenaufnahmen, Konzertengagements, Film- und Fernsehauftritte sehr detailliert auf.Über die Persönlichkeit des legendären NKC erfährt man nur am Rande: seine beiden Ehen mit Nadine Robinson und später mit María Ellington, seine Adoptivkinder Carole und Nat Kelly jr. , die hohen Schulden bei der amerikanischen Finanzbehörde IRS , der quasi Mordversuch auf offener Bühne durch den Kluxklux-Clan 1956 in Alabama, seine Affären mit Barbara McNair oder einem schwedischen Chorus-Girl und schließlich sein viel zu früher Tod 1965 durch eine schwere Krebserkrankung. Wer daher mehr über das Leben von NKC erfahren will , sollte lieber andere Biographien lesen wie z.B. das Buch “Unforgettable „von Leslie Gourse oder das nur noch antiquarisch erhältliche Buch von María Cole( Ellington) „An intimate biographie“. Das vorliegende Buch von Will Friedwald ist für Fans der Musik von NKC eine wahre Fundgrube. Man erfährt viel über Mitmusiker, Komponisten, Texter, Arrangeure mit denen NKC live und im Studio gearbeitet hat, darunter viele Jazzgrössen wie Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Lester Young, Les Paul u.v.a. Das Buch scheint sehr gründlich recherchiert zu sein, denn die Quellenangaben umfassen fast 50 Seiten(!). Insgesamt hat das Buch knapp über 500 Seiten. Leider fehlt im Buch eine Diskographie , da es in letzter Zeit viele Neuerscheinungen mit Live-Aufnahmen gegeben hat , die von Friedwald im Buch besprochen werden. Daher nur 4 statt 5 Sterne. Ansonsten für NKC-Fans ein absolutes Muss!

This is the book on Nat King Cole (1919–1965) that I and so many others have been waiting for. No one could surpass Will Friedwald’s achievement in “Straighten Up and Fly Right.” Why? First, he is our generation’s finest chronicler of the last century’s vocalists who interpreted The Great American Songbook. To this day, after listening to a Sinatra record, I return to Friedwald’s 1995 opus, “Sinatra! The Song Is You,” for information, analysis, and entertainment. In the present volume (2019) Friedwald claims that he was torn between which singer—Sinatra or Cole—whose life and work he would examine first. I am grateful to Mr. Friedwald for returning to the other side of the coin he says he flipped, and for doing for Mr. Cole what he did for Mr. Sinatra.Friedwald’s special talent is to blend autobiography and artistry, sociology and musicology, and to present their complexities in a prose so zesty that I almost devoured these 630+ pages in one long sitting. Reading a book by Friedwald is like sitting in the den of the most excited, knowledgeable fellow in his field, enjoying him tell you almost everything he has learned. He has a knack for coining the right term for something you’ve recognized but hadn’t put into words: “chamber jazz” (for the Cole Trio, 1937-46); “custom ballads” that Cole encouraged songwriters to create for him. Friedwald is opinionated, and you may disagree with some of his opinions, but he’ll never leave you confused how he’s arrived at them. As in all his books, the research is meticulous (sixty-five pages of endnotes), but you never see the heavy lifting. Moreover, in writing this book—obviously in preparation for decades—Friedwald has had access to his subject’s collaborators, fellow artists, friends, and family members, especially Cole’s youngest brother, Lionel Frederick (“Freddy,” 1931– ). As in “Sinatra,” so also here: Friedwald’s focus is on the artist’s music but situates its development within the artist’s life. As Garry Giddins notes, no one is better than Friedwald in marrying an artist’s life with the artistic achievement.Friedwald perceptively observes that the dichotomy often drawn in Nat Cole’s career between pianist and vocalist is fallacious. The more accurate distinction is between Cole the bandleader (which practically began while still in high school) and Cole the star (roughly, 1950 onward.) One of the many merits of this book is to remind those who don’t know or have forgotten that Cole was regarded, not only by the public, but also by his peers as one of the finest jazz pianists of the twentieth century. One anecdote sums it up: Norman Granz, who went on to become über-producer at Verve, was hosting a house party whose guests included Jimmy Rowles, Art Tatum, Count Basie, and Cole. During the evening everyone took his turn on Granz’s piano save Bill Basie, who was listening from the kitchen. When Granz asked invited him to the keyboard, Basie said, “After Art Tatum and Nat Cole? You’re asking me to play? I would die first!” (p. 151). Sinatra himself was in awe of Cole’s talent. The adjective that Friedwald repeatedly uses to describe Cole’s style is “crystalline”: both at the keyboard and with his voice. My ears tell me that Friedwald has put his finger on the truth. Cole sang in the manner he played and played in the manner he sang. The closest comparison of such seamlessly crossover musical virtuosity may be Louis Armstrong. But more so than Pops, Sinatra, or any other recording artist of his time, Friedwald shows us how endlessly inventive and expansive was Cole’s scope. Many are the great jazz, vocal, R & B, and pop artists—but how many of them were able to fuse all of these styles into a given song with such talent and taste? Only Nat Cole.The picture that emerges from this book is a gentleman of great dignity, modesty, and warm humanity. He never succumbed to bitterness—not only at his era’s racism, but also attempts on his life, even in his own upscale neighborhood in Los Angeles. Many of his fellow African-Americans were angry with him for turning the other cheek. Others, like the more politically activist Harry Belafonte, shook their heads in disbelief: “How would anyone attack Nat? He was the sweetest, nicest guy in the world” (331). That seems to have been the general opinion. Ace arranger Billy May, not given to gushing, is quoted: “He was just a wonderful guy. … He had a very open mind about music … and everything. He was a wonderful man” (455). Who wouldn’t want to spend 600 pages with someone like that?For a publisher as scrupulous as Oxford University Press, I was surprised to discover two blunders that betrayed a rush to publication: a proofreader's strikeout word (101) and notation to “[INSERT FOOTNOTE]” (170). Compensation: mid-book, twenty-four glossy photographs of Cole, his friends and colleagues.Anyone who loves American jazz or twentieth-century pop will enjoy relaxing while Will Friedwald spins yarn after yarn about both the “show” and the “business” in show business of 1920–65. Anyone who loves Nat King Cole should not hesitate: Press the “Buy” button right now. Those like myself who have adored this gentleman’s music for decades will return to it with renewed appreciation, as well as purchase Friedwald’s recommended albums that somehow escaped my attention. My greatest aspiration for this book is that it will introduce a new generation to an artist who truly deserves to be unforgettable.

The key to understanding the musical career of Nat King Cole is that he, like most great artists--Picasso and Bob Dylan come to mind--realized that the key to staying fresh was not to stand still but to be always changing, and so forever growing as a musician. Cole began by performing jazz piano, then moved on to be-bop, and rhythm and blues, then quite by accident to stand-up vocalist, in both jazz and pop. Once he became America's favorite pop balladeer, he changed again, by recording world music (French, Spanish and Portuguese songs), big band jazz, gospel, and finally, near the end of his career, country and western, all the while retaining his huge fan base, and selling millions of records. Music critic Will Friedwald covers it all with clarity and great wit in his monumental Cole biography, "Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole".(Note: Cole's song "Straighten Up and Fly Right" is based on a black folk legend that Cole's father--a Baptist preacher--once used in a sermon. It was the first song Cole recorded for Capital Records in the early 1940s, and became his first number one hit).Nathaniel Adams Coles (he dropped the "s" from his last name when he became a bandleader) was born in 1919 in Montgomery, Alabama, the second of four sons of a Baptist preacher, who, four years later, moved his family to Chicago. The Coles settled in Bronzeville, Chicago's largest black community, where young Nathaniel studied piano with their mother, a church organist, and in due time became a professional musician, as did all three of his brothers.At the time the Coles' family moved to the windy city, the south side of Chicago, where the Coles settled, was the epicenter of jazz in the time of Prohibition. As young Nathanial was beginning to master the piano, he became aware of one of the all-time great jazz pianists--Earl Hines. Hines was not only a great jazz pianist, he was also a bandleader. As a result, Nat Cole decided he not only wanted to master Hines' brilliant piano technique, but to model his career on Hines-the-bandleader. (Cole decided very early on, that he could never be a sideman; he had to be the leader of whatever ensemble he was playing in. "I kind of thrive on responsibility," he told journalist Edward R. Murrow in 1957).In September 1933, Nat Cole, now fourteen, entered Wendell Phillips Academy High School. It was there that his musical dreams began to take shape. As fate would have it, Wendell Phillips Academy was the perfect place for a young musician as gifted as Cole to be attending. (Besides Cole, students who graduated and went on to fame, included Herbie Hancock, Sam Cooke and Dinah Washington.) The Academy's music director was a stern task master named Walter Henri Dyert, who made certain that his students were well versed in the musical rudiments, including being first-rate chart "readers." By his sophomore year, Cole could not only read music as well as any classical or studio musician, but also he was an ace improvisor, with a gift for devising ingenious "head arrangements" on the spot.By the age of 15, Cole was performing every night in small jazz clubs around the South Side, and somehow also making it to classes in the morning. For most of the 1933-34 school year, he also was working regularly as a sideman around the city. (Years later, asked how he managed to get his studies done, Cole confessed, "Well, I guess it didn't get done").Around this time Cole befriended journalist/promoter Malcolm B. Smith. He encouraged Cole to put together an eight-piece jazz band, and hired them to perform before other teenagers on Sunday afternoons at Warwick Hall, on Chicago's South Side. Smith was a master promoter with lots of connections in the print media, and by working all the angles managed to get Cole's photo in a number of newspapers and trade magazines. Cole's first band was a smash success, and soon an article and photo appeared in a magazine, proclaiming Cole as "the leader of one of the hottest bands in the Midwest." It wasn't long after that, and the Nat Cole Orchestra expanded to ten pieces, with Cole writing all the arrangements and conducting from the piano, with a male vocalist named Arthur Hicks as the front man.When Cole began his second year of high school, he was already a professional musician, as confirmed by his membership in the local union. After fluctuating between "Coles" and "Cole" for a few years, he now settled on "Cole" as his permanent professional last name, with his ten-piece band now billed as "Nat Cole and his Royal Dukes."After finishing high school, the next step for Nat Cole and his Royal Dukes was to go on the road, with an extended tour throughout the upper midwest, and finally out to Los Angeles There, despite enthusiastic sellout crowds, the tour stalled, due to a lack of funds. Apparently, someone absconded the ticket receipts, and as a result management could no longer pay salaries or expenses. The band dispersed and Cole found himself without a job.At the time, all the great jazz clubs were centered in West Los Angeles, and the owner of one of them (the Swanee Inn, at 133 North Le Brea Avenue, in Hollywood), Bob Lewis, invited Cole to put together a small group, and perform at his establishment. Cole, who had just turned 18, got together with guitarist Oscar Moore and bassist Wesley Prince, and in September of 1937, began performing nightly at the Swanee Inn, as the original edition of the King Cole Trio. The rest as they say is history. Within three years, after performing in venues throughout greater Los Angeles, the small combo would sign its first record contract, and hit the airways with their first smash hit, "Straighten Up and Fly Right."The idea of a trio was quite unique at the time. Full-time jazz combos were rare in the '30s--jazz and pop music would be dominated by big bands for another decade to come. How to explain the trio's success? Foremost, Cole's talent at the keyboard was such that whatever band he performed in would have created a sensation, and Moore and Prince were exceptional musicians. However, the absence of a drummer gave the trio's sound a unique, clean texture that allowed Cole and his sidemen to toss around musical ideas with carefree abandon. All that was missing was the element of contrast, and Cole supplied that when he began singing with the group.Why did Cole decide to sing? Years later, he explained: "When I organized the King Cole Trio back in 1937, we were strictly what you would call an instrumental group. To break the monotony, I would sing things I had known over the years. I wasn't trying to give it any special treatment, just singing. I noticed thereafter people started requesting more singing, and it was just one of things."By now, Cole had added a touch of the blues to his robust Earl Hines' jazz stylings. Writes the author: "At twenty, Cole (was) already one of the finest blues pianists in history: few of the piano giants he revered could touch him as far as the blues were concerned, not (Art) Tatum, not (Teddy) Wilson, not (Fats) Waller, and not even his original idol, Earl Hines. . . . "In addition to recording prolifically (mostly instrumentals), the trio made frequent guest appearances on radio, eventually starring in their own weekly radio show on NBC, "King Cole Trio Time." They followed up their number one hit, with a Christmas tune, that also topped the charts, "The Christmas Song", composed by fellow jazz musician Mel Tormé. This time, their producer added four violins and a harp to sweeten their sound.There followed a string of hits using the same formula, of utilizing strings to sweeten the trio's sound: "(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons", "What'll I do?", "Nature Boy" and "Lost April".The result led Cole, his manager, and his colleagues at Capitol Records to begin thinking of him not as a singer-pianist, but as a stand-up vocalist who played piano on the side. With this in mind, the executives at Capitol began pairing Cole with arrangers who could further bolster his commercial sound.The first was an unknown arranger named Nelson Riddle who at the time was ghost-arranging for band leader Les Baxter. As a result two of Cole's biggest early hits ("Mona Lisa" and "Too Young") list Les Baxter as arranger. In time, Cole became aware that the actual arranger behind his number-one hits was not Les Baxter but a shy, former trombonist for the Tommy Dorsey orchestra, named Nelson Riddle. By the time Cole recorded what would become his signature song --"Unforgettable", the record label correctly named Nelson Riddle as arranger.The Trio's days were numbered, however, which distressed their legion of loyal fans. While Cole continued to perform in jazz clubs with the trio, the name was changed from the "King Cole Trio" to "Nat King Cole and His Trio." However, when television beckoned, Cole would perform without the trio, as a stand-up vocalist. For Cole, who always thought of himself as an entertainer first, and as a musician second, the change made sense. Indeed, he saw it as another way of staying fresh. However, he never gave up on the trio, and would resurrect it from time to time, especially for pure jazz albums, such as "After Midnight." For more mainstream and hard-swinging jazz albums and singles, Cole began working with brass band specialist Billy May.How did Cole, who began his career as a bandleader and arranger, manage to take a back seat to other musicians arranging his music? Exceptionally well. Writes the author: "Cole had started his career leading a big band in Chicago, for which he wrote all the arrangements, thus, in later years, rather like Quincy Jones, he didn't need to write all of his orchestral arrangements, but it was his own ability as an arranger that allowed him to work with such giants of pop music orchestrators as Nelson Riddle, Billy May, and Gordon Jenkins. . . ."His experience as a songwriter, coupled with his ability as an arranger and singer, enabled Cole to find songs the public would love. As a result, he introduced more new standards into the public domain than anyone in the business. "Working in clubs for years, I learned that you have to reach audiences . . . you have to get across the footlights to the crowd. If you don't--you're sunk." (picking good songs, and selling them as a vocalist, was part of the deal).According to the author, "that partially explains why Cole is so closely identified with individual songs--and had so many hit singles--whereas (by comparison) Frank Sinatra was better suited, in the long run, to create his masterpieces in the album format. Cole could put over a song and make his point in three minutes; Sinatra did better when he could put a story together point by point . . . ."Both Cole and Sinatra were known for their faultless diction and phrasing, which served them well singing American standards. However, Cole went a step farther by adding French, Spanish and Portuguese songs to his repertoire. His friend, Sammy Davis Jr., used to kid him about his diction on Spanish and French songs. "He learned the songs phonetically, and they sure sound it," remembers Davis, who was taught Spanish by his mother. "But when I went to South America, everybody asked me, 'Why don't you sing in Spanish like Nat?' I stopped teasing him."In 1956, Cole and arranger Gordon Jenkins made what was perhaps Coles' masterpiece, a collections of heart-felt ballads entitled "Love is the Thing." It was Coles' first million-seller. However, Cole being Cole, rather than repeat himself, moved on to other genres. His next album, in which he resurrected the trio for a hard-core jazz fest, was "After Midnight" After that he worked with Billy May and his band of studio pros, on a high-octane jazz album, entitled "Just One of Those Things." He followed this with "Cole Español", the first of three all Spanish albums he would make. Then, paired with Nelson Riddle, he recorded an album of blues standards entitled "St. Louis Blues". After that he finally got around to making a follow up to "Love is the Thing", entitled "The Very Thought of You." Despite the changes, his fans continued to buy his records. Indeed, thanks to world sales, "Cole Español" was one of his biggest money-makers.Among Cole's most enduring classics, is his account of "Stardust," a song, ironically enough, he did not want to record. It was Cole's producer and friend, Lee Gillette, who insisted he do it. "I hate to sing 'Stardust,' Cole said at the time, "it wears me out." However, Gillette was insistent. "When we got to choosing the material and came to 'Stardust', and Nat looked at me and he said, 'You gotta be out of your mind! Me, do 'Stardust'?! It's got to have a thousand recordings!' I said, 'Yeah, but we don't have one by Nat Cole.' So we finally got that settled, and got the key set, I said 'Now Nat, there's one other thing . . .' and he said, 'Oh no, I'm not doing the verse!' I said, 'You've got to do the verse.' Well we argued for an hour or so on that. I finally convinced him to do the verse."Although the tentative title of the album was "Love is the Thing," at one point they considered calling the album "Stardust," and, according to the author, that's what it says on Capitol's recording sheets. But apparently Cole was still unconvinced, even after they made the first take, and it seemed to be apparent to everyone but the singer that this was a "Stardust" for the ages. (Indeed, after hearing Cole's version, Sinatra stepped away from recording his version).A year after recording "Stardust", Cole sang the song on his own TV show, which aired on NBC. The show had the ratings but, alas, not the sponsorship to keep it on the air. At the end of the first year, NBC reluctantly dropped The Nat King Cole show.Cole was a lifelong smoker, which, unfortunately, caught up with him in middle age. After recording his 28th album for Capitol Records (entitled, "L.O.V.E."), Nat Cole died February 15, 1965, age 45.

I really wanted to love this book as I have been an NKC for years and I wanted to learn more about the man. Unfortunately, this book is more of a musicology....I felt like I just read 100 record reviews. It got very tiresome. Towards the end I was just groaning any time there was going to be a discussion of a new record.As well, the book bordered on hagiography. It is clear how much Friedwald loves NKC and his work...and there's plenty of reason to. But it felt excessive. On the other hand, I can't think of a more comprehensive book on NKC's work. If that is what you are seeking, you are likely to give this book a 5-star rating. If, like me, you want to get a better picture of the man and his life and character, you'd probably end up giving it 4 stars.Which brings me to my biggest beef with this book: TERRIBLE editing. The errors and omissions are incredible in number. Other reviewers mentioned some. I can add to those: Red Callender is referred to as "Calendar" in one instance; in one paragraph the author states W.C. Handy died at 74. A line or two above it gives his life span as 1873-1958 (er....that would be 84....which is it?); La Cienega in L.A. is consistently written as "La Cienga"; one line states that some people stayed up till 3 or 4pm "in the morning" (er...maybe "am"?) And these are just the ones I can think of from just the top of my head. I am a huge fan of the Oxford Press and I just can't believe they let such carelessness slip by. Hopefully they will pay more attention to the second edition. For now, it is a one-star "demerit" for me.