The jazzy Nat ‘King’ Cole

Now available in local music stores is Unforgettable, a double disc collection of some of legendary Nat “King” Cole’s best recordings. One of the cuts is The Christmas Song, also known way back when as Merry Christmas to You but which has over the years acquired the subtitle Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire. Composed by another great vocalist, the Velvet Fog Mel Torme it was one of Cole’s first big sellers and has an interesting bit of trivia attached to it.

It seems like Cole, known for his impeccable diction committed a huge grammatical booboo when he first recorded The Christmas Song. There is a line there that says “and every mother’s child is gonna try to see if reindeer really know how to fly…” Cole sang “reindeers” in that original version. For some unknown reason, the English language does not use the letter “s” to form the plural of reindeer or of the root word deer. It is simply deer or reindeer for both  singular or plural forms.

Cole probably realized his mistake early on but The Christmas Song was already such a big hit that the “reindeers” stayed for several years until Cole recorded a corrected version. He did two or three more over the years and these newer ones with the “reindeer” were usually what were included in the later Christmas albums. But naughty me  has always been curious about that “reindeer” and then out of the blue, I found it in Unforgettable, here closing the 20 song set of Disc 1 is The Christmas Song with the flying reindeers.

But Cole’s grammatical lapse is not what Unforgettable is all about. I do not think it is even about the hits, although it has a lot. You have to look elsewhere for Around the World or When I Fall in Love and Love Letters, but Disc 1 here also has Unforgettable, Mona Lisa, Too Young, Pretend, A Blossom Fell, Nature Boy, Smile, Orange Coloured Sky, Lush Life, Somewhere Along the Way, Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup, Faith Can Move Mountains, Jet, Because You’re Mine, Can’t I? Angel Eyes, Make Her Mine, Tenderly and Mother Nature and Father Time.

The best thing about Unforgettable is  it also throws focus on Nat “King” Cole as  jazz artist. He fronted the jazz act called The Nat “King” Cole trio where he played really great piano. The trio is believed to have originated the drumless jazz group. Getting rid of the drums made for an easy, relaxing vibe in the music but people thought it strange and daring at that time. The drummer in a band actually calls the shots, sets the beat and the rhythm and even the beginning and end of a performance. To play jazz with all its improvisation without a drummer is really quite a feat. And that was what Nat Cole’s trio did.

Here in Disc 2 of Unforgettable are some of Nat Cole’s acclaimed jazz recordings. Sweet Lorraine, It’s Only a Paper Moon, Embraceable You, (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons, (Get Your Kicks) On Route 66, Straighten Up and Fly Right, Don’t Blame Me, The Frim Fram Sauce, What’ll I Do? I Don’t Know Why (I Just Do), You’re The Cream in My Coffee, For All We Know, Exactly Like You, My Baby Just Cares for Me, I’ve Got the World on a String, Too Marvelous for Words, Blue and Sentimental, Save the Bones for Henry Jones, I’ll String Along with You and Dream a Little Dream of Me.

Incidentally, all of the tracks in the album have been digitally remastered.

Best Love 100

More old songs. If you want love songs that will bring back your romantic memories from the more recent decades of the ‘70s,  ‘80s and ‘90s, check out Best Love 100 from EMI. A boxed six-CD set, this has love songs of various types. It should please everybody including the collector who wants copies of most of these hits on discs but are practical enough not to want to buy an entire album with only one hit song in it.

Among the songs included are Love of My Life by Queen; Too Much Love Will Kill You by Brian May; Rush Rush by Paula Abdul; Somebody by Depeche Mode; After the Love has Gone by Damage; Paint My Love by Michael Learns to Rock; I Could Fall in Love by Selena; Have You Never Been Mellow by Olivia Newton-John; Wishful Thinking by China Crisis; Stay Awake by Ronnie Laws; Emotion by Samantha Sang; Beautiful in My Eyes by Joshua Kadison; Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady by Helen Reddy; Can’t Help Falling in Love by Corey Hart; and Say It by Voices of Theory.