The Nat King Cole Show

I recently came across this show on BET Jazz the other day. It amazes me that nobody wanted to sponsor this show for fear of reprisals from their racist southern(and northern) customers. Alas, things have not changed in this country. We are still ruled but the sick and disgusting disease called racism.

Nuff said about that.

The NKC show featured guests such as Sammy Davis Jr, Louie Bellson, Pearl Bailey and others. You were also greeted by Nat throughout his show by his stellar singing voice. There will never be a show of this caliber ever again.

In the fall of 1956,NBC-TV took great risks with this star,who was at the time very famous for his chart-topping hits off his Capitol Records label,but also made television history as the very first African-American to have his own weekly variety series. This was something that took extreme measures to do even in the heyday of 50's golden television especially when individuals refused to let people of other minorities to do so.

Yes,ladies and gentlemen history was being made with "The Nat King Cole Show".

I got the chance to see a glimpse of the lost series from the 50's and this was brilliant beyond belief. Each week,Cole would bring in special guests to performed with him and also every once in a while have his two lovely daughters(Natalie and Cookie)do a song. However,this show didn't last very long,but it was a rare opportunity to see a classic performer at his very best. Yes,this was a rarity if it is to be seen.

I had never known about The Nat King Cole Show until I tripped across this gem on BET Jazz. I was absolutely floored to hear Nat King Cole's piano performance on one of the shows! I already knew he was the greatest and smoothest of singers. That he also had the ability to play really fine piano was a revelation. He was technically flawless, and clearly enjoying himself.

The show also featured guest stars, some of them who became famous and remain so today, and some who were "up and coming" but have since faded. Regardless of fame, the quality of performance throughout is truly wonderful. It is obvious that a lot of thought went into this production.

I was so sorry to hear of the show's demise after a short run. The reason is particularly distasteful (ie, its being ahead of its time for having a black man in more than a subservient role). This must have been a real disappointment to Mr. Cole and his fellow black performers, arrangers, composers, etc. I can only imagine how it must have been for them, to live under that cloud of discrimination.

Nat, you are still the greatest, after all these years. "You'll never know how much I care!"

I saw some episodes of this show about fifteen years ago on Washington, D.C.'s channel 32, the Howard University channel, and I was enthralled. My liking for the show stemmed not just from the quality of the music and of the performances, both Nat King Cole's and his guests', but from the warmth and charisma exuded by Nat King Cole in his hosting role, and from the elegant simplicity of the presentation. There was a minimum of showbiz flash: rather, what you had was a gracious host, a simple set, and good music. Each episode felt, in a way, more like a nearly-no-frills concert in an intimate setting than like television musical presentation of the kind we've become accustomed to. It was a cliché of the era to say that television brought entertainment "into your living room"; but this show, with its feeling of intimacy and relaxed understatement, achieves that goal perhaps more than any other television show I've seen.

Of course, much of the elegant simplicity I'm praising here was probably the unavoidable result of budgetary limitations. Virtually all fifties television was low-budget by today's standards; and while I've never seen any other fifties musical variety shows to compare it with (my familiarity with musical variety shows begins with the mid sixties), it's possible that The Nat King Cole Show was lower-budget than most. So personally I'd consider this show to be an example of how limitations can work to the artistic advantage of the creators of a production by leaving them no choice but to concentrate all their attentions and energies on the essentials; although perhaps the average showbiz-flash-craving viewer of then, or of now, wouldn't agree. Television musical presentation of this kind may be destined to always be a rarity; but fortunately the kinescopes of this show have survived for our enjoyment, and to help record the artistry of one of the twentieth century's greatest popular-music performers.

I was lucky enough to see this show here in Australia when it was broadcast on SBS TV network well over 20 years ago. The show was made in the mid fifties, about 10 years before Nat's untimely death of cancer at the age of 45. On the TV show, Nat was in great form. The amazing thing was that he sang live, and I'm presuming Nelson Riddle's orchestra was behind the curtain. When he sang, he never missed a beat or sang a wrong note, and that effortless voice of his had that wonderful timbre that he became known for. The other great thing was that his guests also sang live, and were also performing at a high level.

I must confess to being a fan of Nat's early jazz stuff that he did with his Trio. Nat was a monster piano player and could improvise with the best jazzers of the day. There was one show featuring Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz, Roy Eldridge and many others which showed this side of Nat's musical ability. (Most of this show is cut up into smaller segments on youtube but if you google 'Nat King Cole Show JATP' you should get most of it).

But most of the time it was Nat singing ballads of the day that would appeal to the masses. He also had some wonderful singers appearing such as Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr, Tony Bennett, Mel Torme, Peggy Lee and many many more. Nat's later trio sometimes featured as his back up, but it was mostly orchestral .

I'm a big fan of four part vocal harmonies and this was the first time I got to see the Hi- Lo's who were just sensational.

While a few of these shows are on youtube, it would be great to see them all located, cleaned up and released on DVD. It really was Nat in his singing prime, and is valuable for an insight into one of the greatest singers of all time.