| NAT: An Orchestral Portrait of Nat "King" Cole | ||||
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1966 | |||
| Recorded | 1966 | |||
| Genre | Traditional pop | |||
| Length | 34:14 | |||
| Label | Reprise RS-6162 | |||
| Producer | Sonny Burke | |||
| Nelson Riddle chronology | ||||
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NAT: An Orchestral Portrait of Nat "King" Cole is an album by American composer and arranger Nelson Riddle of music associated with the singer and pianist Nat King Cole. [1] The album was released a year after Cole's death in 1965; Riddle had previously arranged several of Cole's albums. [2] [3]
Nelson Riddle enjoyed a long and successful professional relationship with Nat King Cole. As his very first effort for Capitol Records, he arranged the singer's 1950 hit "Mona Lisa", and for the next 15 years the two collaborated on numerous singles and nearly a dozen LPs. A year after King Cole's death in 1965, Riddle arranged a tribute album of the singer's music. Riddle biographer Peter J. Levinson wrote: [4]
[Riddle] had lost one of his closest friends and the man who had given him a golden opportunity to display his talent. As Nelson described it, 'Nat was my wedge.' Without Nat having taken a stand on his behalf, one can only speculate on the ultimate fate of Nelson's career.
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
| Record Mirror | [5] |
Reviewing the 2005 CD re-release of the album for AllMusic, Al Campbell wrote, "Although not essential, this is a respectable reissue that traditional pop fans should be aware of". [1]
Nathaniel Adams Coles, known professionally by his stage name Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's career as a jazz and pop vocalist started in the late 1930s and spanned almost three decades where he found success and recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts.
Leslie Thompson Baxter was an American musician, composer and conductor. After working as an arranger and composer for swing bands, he developed his own style of easy listening music, known as exotica and scored over 250 radio, television and motion pictures numbers.
Nelson Smock Riddle Jr. was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid-1980s. He worked with many vocalists at Capitol Records, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Peggy Lee, Johnny Mathis, Rosemary Clooney and Keely Smith. He scored and arranged music for many films and television shows, earning an Academy Award and three Grammy Awards. He found commercial and critical success with a new generation in the 1980s, in a trio of Platinum albums with Linda Ronstadt.
"The Christmas Song" is a classic Christmas song written in 1945 by Robert Wells and Mel Tormé.
Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely is the fifteenth studio album by American singer Frank Sinatra. It was released on September 8, 1958, through Capitol Records.
The Nat King Cole Songbook is a 1965 studio album by Sammy Davis Jr., recorded in tribute to singer and pianist Nat King Cole, who had recently died.
"Mona Lisa" is a popular song written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston for the Paramount Pictures film Captain Carey, U.S.A. (1949), in which it was performed by Sergio de Karlo and a recurrent accordion motif. The title and lyrics refer to the renaissance portrait Mona Lisa painted by Leonardo da Vinci. The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1950.
To Whom It May Concern is a 1959 album by Nat King Cole, arranged by Nelson Riddle.
Ramblin' Rose is a Nat King Cole album. It was released by Capitol Records in 1962, and features the popular title track. The LP peaked at #3 on Billboards album chart where it remained for more than a year. It was Nat's second gold album.
The following is the discography for big band and traditional pop arranger Nelson Riddle (1921–1985).
Wild Is Love is a 1960 concept album by the American singer and pianist Nat King Cole, arranged by Nelson Riddle. The album chronicles a narrator's attempts to pick up various women before he finds love at the conclusion of the album. The album formed the basis for an unsuccessful musical, I'm With You, that starred Cole and was intended as a potential Broadway vehicle for him. A television special also called Wild Is Love resulted from the album, and was shown in Canada in late 1961. The television special was not shown in the United States until 1964 due to the brief presence of physical contact between the African American Cole and a performer of Canadian European descent, Larry Kert, that was seen as offensive by commercial sponsors.
The Nat King Cole Story is a 1961 album by Nat King Cole. The album was a retrospective of Cole's recording career, designed to present many of his earlier hits in new recordings featuring stereo sound. Cole is accompanied on the re-recordings by many of the notable arrangers and bands that had appeared with him on the original records.
Don Raffell was an American saxophonist, woodwind doubler (multireedist), studio musician and educator. Raffell recorded on hundreds of records, movies, and T.V shows dating from the 1940s all the way through the 1990s. His career as a studio musician was long and stylistically diverse having started in the big band era and playing all the way up through rock n' roll and other modern pop era acts. He had a long time close professional association with arranger and conductor Nelson Riddle.
Unforgettable is an original jazz compilation by Nat King Cole. It was initially released on a 10-inch LP in 1952, and it was reissued on a 12-inch LP in 1954.
Unforgettable – A Musical Tribute to Nat King Cole is a soundtrack album released in the UK in 1983 by the CBS Records division of Columbia in conjunction with the broadcast of American pop singer Johnny Mathis's BBC television concert special of the same name that featured Cole's daughter Natalie. The front of the original album jacket credits the concert performers as "Johnny Mathis and Natalie Cole", whereas the CD booklet reads, "Johnny Mathis with special guest Natalie Cole".
When I'm Thinking of You is an album by American singer Tommy Sands. It was arranged by Nelson Riddle and released in 1959.
Dream with Me is an album by the American singer Tommy Sands. It was arranged by Nelson Riddle and released in 1960.
"Send for Me" is a song written by Ollie Jones and performed by Nat King Cole featuring the McCoy's Boys. It reached No. 1 on the U.S. R&B chart and No. 6 on the U.S. pop chart in 1957. The song was arranged by Billy May.
Sing a Song with Riddle is the seventh studio album by American composer and arranger Nelson Riddle, released in 1959. The album consists of arrangements for a vocalist but without a singer; a lyric sheet was supplied with the original album package for buyers to sing along with at home. The inspiration for the release was a series of albums for amateur instrumentalists called Music Minus One on Command Records.
The Music from Oklahoma! was Nelson Riddle's first studio album in his own right, released in 1955, after successful collaborations with Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra for Capitol Records.