More of the Music of Nat “King” Cole

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Nat “King” Cole

The reissue pressings rarely sounded right to us.

In addition, the mono copies were uniformly awful — small, congested and gritty.

Our Hot Stamper pressings — even the lowest-graded copies we offer –are sure to give you fuller vocals, more transparency, more weight to the piano and, of course, the tubey warmth of vintage analog.

Copies with rich lower mids did the best in our shootout, assuming they weren’t veiled or smeary of course. So many things can go wrong on a record! We know, we’ve heard them all.

Top end extension is critical to the sound of the best copies. Lots of old records (and new ones) have no real top end; consequently the studio or stage will be missing much of its natural ambience and space, and instruments will lack their full complement of harmonic information.

Tube smear is common to pressings from every era and this is no exception. The copies that tend to do the best in a shootout will have the least (or none), yet are full-bodied, tubey and rich.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

September Song 
Pick Yourself Up 
I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good) 
Let There Be Love 
Azure-Te 
Lost April

Side Two

A Beautiful Friendship 
Fly Me to the Moon 
Serenata 
I’m Lost 
There’s a Lull in My Life 
Don’t Go

AMG Review

Although it would have been interesting to hear Nat Cole play some piano and perhaps accompany a vocal by George Shearing instead of exclusively the other way around, this session was a big success. Cole is in prime form on such songs as “September Song,” “Pick Yourself Up,” and “Serenata.” Shearing’s accompaniment is tasteful and lightly swinging, and the string arrangements help to accentuate the romantic moods.