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Reviewers: Don Mather, Dick Stafford, Marc Bridle, John Eyles, Ian Lace, Colin Clarke, Jack Ashby



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Crotchet

THE KING COLE TRIO

"Vine Street Jump"

Transcriptions Volume 5 1940

Featuring Maxene Johnson

NAXOS JAZZ LEGENDS 8. 120705

 

       

      1. Let’s Do Something
      2. Love Me Soone
      3. Jumpy Jitters
      4. Nothing Ever Happens
      5. Sentimental Blues
      6. What’cha Doin’ to My Heart
      7. I’m a Perfect Fool Over You
      8. Never Mind Baby
      9. Lovely Little Person
      10. Goin’ to Town with Honey
      11. Syncopated Lullaby
      12. Falling In & Out of Love
      13. Early Morning Blues
      14. Bedtime
      15. Honey Hush
      16. French Toast
      17. Vine Street Jump
      18. B Flat
      19. You Send Me
      20. Love Is My Alibi
      21. Gone With the Draft
      22. Pogo Stick Bounce

      Nat ‘King’ Cole – piano/vocals

      Oscar Moore – guitar

      Wesley Prince – bass

      Maxene Johnson – vocals, tracks 2,5,7,9

      How Maxene Johnson came to be singing with the Nat Cole Trio is a mystery to me, she is not a jazz singer by any stretch of the imagination and her intonation is suspect on each track. The good news is that there are only four of them!

      The trio is as usual a very classy act, Oscar Moore is a fine guitar player and he blends well with Nat Cole’s immaculate piano playing. Wesley Prince plays accurate bass lines and rounds off the trio.

      These recordings were made to be used on broadcasts and the ownership of them is unknown. The transcription companies syndicated their recordings to radio stations and it suited them to use original compositions because they owned the rights to them, although they were never published. From the sound of them, my guess would be that they are mostly Nat Cole compositions.

      Nat Cole was one of the greatest pianists that the jazz world ever produced and that was long before he got into being an international recording artiste. The trouble with this particular selection of his work, is that although musically it is well up to his high standards, the tracks are rather similar and where the trio really does start to take off, for example ‘Pogo Stick Bounce’, the tracks are very short.

      Don Mather

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