There were two Nat king Coles, though most people only remember one. The famous Nat Cole was balladeer with the taffy-rich voice, a pop idol whose recordings of "Unforgettable" and "Nature Boy" and "Mona Lisa" are playing on a hundred easy-listening stations somewhere in America at any given moment. The forgotten Nat Cole was one of the three or four best pianists in the history of jazz, a deceptively easygoing virtuoso whose crystalline solos and dead-center swing left their mark on a hundred distinguished admirers, including Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans. Put them together and you get a protean genius who influenced singers and instrumentalists in equal measure - Just as he appealed, Louis Armstrong-like, to everyone from casual listeners to connoisseurs. He was, in Duke Ellington's perfect phrase, beyond category, and when he died, the world wept.
The two Nat Coles came together in the King Cole Trio, for a decade the most popular combo in jazz, Cole, guitarist Oscar Moore and bassist Johnny Miller forged a sound that has been imitated but never duplicated, an irresistible mixture of crisp ensembles, no-nonsense solos and sly group vocals, welded together by Cole's come-hither singing. No sooner did "All for You" and "Straighten Up and Fly Right," the trio's first Capitol singles, hit the jukeboxes in 1943 than Nat Cole become, and remained, a star. He broke up the trio eight years later to concentrate on stand-up singing, but the King Cole Trio's hundreds of 78s remain a monument to just how good - and how smart - pop music can be.
All for you is a tribute to the King Cole Trio by a woman who is better equipped than any other jazz musician of her generation to evoke the spirit of Nat Cole. Diana Krall, who listened eagerly to Cole's records as a grew up to be that rarest of birds: a singer-pianist as comfortable and distinctive in one role as the other. You couldn't prove it by her; Krall's modesty is a byword in business. But her colleagues know better, and are quick to say so. " She plays all that piano." guitarist Russell Malone says, shaking his head and grinning, "and then she sings like that! I don't think she knows how good she is."
One of the things that makes this album so special is the fact that it was recorded by a working group. Diana, Russell and bassist Paul keller spent a whole summer on the road before going into the studio last October, and it shows: they play like three people with one musical mind. That's what jazz musicians mean when they say a group is "tight," and this group is as tight as the wedding ring on a fat man's finger. Most producers would have teamed Diana witha couple of big-name session players from New York or Los Angeles, but the thought never occurred to Tommy LiPuma. "Oh, God, no," he says, grimacing"No way, The only way you could have made this record is with these guys. Can't you hear the difference? This is a band."
The instrumentation is worth mentioning, too. It isn't easy to make a drummerless trio work. You can't coast, not even for eight bars. You have to dig deep into the beat all night long. But when everything clicks, the results are worth it, the jump tunes swing harder; the ballads take on an intimate, confidential feel. And this is a very intimate record. Close your eyes and listen. You could be sitting in a smoky club at two a.m., the hour when everybody has gone home except the serious listeners and the people with nothing to go home to but trouble.
Which brings us to Diana Krall's voice. It doesn't sound like Nat Cole, or anybody else. I once said it sounded like wild honey with a spoonful of Scotch, and Diana liked that, though she doesn't make any great claims for her singing. "I've always been very shy about it," she says, "and i tried to avoid it whenever I could. I got more work because I could sing, but I didn't like doing it in lounges as a single. I didn't feel I had a clear, precise voice - a pretty voice." She's right. It isn't pretty. It's beautiful. It's steeped in sorrow and the blues, and even when she's obviously having a ball, somehow you know she knows a thing or two about trouble. Yes, she plays piano like a funky angel; yes, she can swing you into bad health. But she can also put a cold hand your heart and remind you that love hurts, and there aren't many people who can do that. If Nat Cole could have heard Diana Krall do this songs, he would have smiled that wonderful smile of his; he would have known how good she is, even if she doesn't.
The first song of All for you, I'm an Errand Girl for Rhythm, is a Cole original, an up-tempo romp on "I Got Rhythm" changes, (The original title was, of course, "Errand Boy.") It's just right for kicking off a set- or an album.
Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You, recorded at the King Cole Trio's very first session for Capitol (immediately after "Straighten Up and Fly Right"), is by Don Redman, who wrote Fletcher Henderson's early charts, and Andy Razaf, whose most famous collaborator, Fats Waller, was another of Diana Krall's childhood idols, (Jim Carrey fans may also recognize it as the song Cameron Diaz sings in The Mask.) Cole took it at medium lope; Diana shows it down a couple of notches.
You Call it Madness is one of those '30s ballads Cole loved: suave on the surface, passionate underneath. Diana picked it up at second hand: she first heard it on an album by Monty Alexander, Herb Ellis and Ray Brown. "I was really pleased to get this one on the album," she says. "I always liked hearing Monty do it."
Boulevard of Broken Dreams features an added starter, percussionist Steve Kroon. His presence recalls the fourth member of the KC3, bongo player Jack Costanzo, who joined in 1949, adding a touch of Latin spice.
Frim Fram Sauce, a novelty tune recorded by Cole in 1945, was one of the trio's biggest hits. Nobody really Knows what the words mean, but when Diana sings them, it isn't hard to draw your own conclusions...
Baby baby All the Time is the other Bobby Troup song recorded by the King Cole Trio (the first one was "Route 66"). The "melody" is a simple as a Basie blues: one short riff repeated eight times, followed by the title. Master songwriter Alec Wilder, who hated riff tunes, made an exception for this one: "There is some marvelous insanity about Troup's insistence. I try to look away and it's no use."
Russell and Paul sing along with Diana on Hit That Jive Jack. It's not the sort of thing your modern-day jazzman usually does on the gig, but nei-there one boggled when she asked them to give it a try: "Whenever I suggest something to them, it's always, 'Yeah, O.K.' all the way. And the other way around, too. They're not sidemen. This is a collective. We really discuss things - and I trust them." And no wonder: this track moves.
You're looking at Me, another Bobby Troup special, was recorded by Cole in 1956 for After Midnight, one of the few records on which he played piano after disbanding the trio. Diana and Russell perform it here as a duet. "It's one of my favorite Nat Cole recordings," she says, "and I'm so glad to be accompanied by Russell. I've worked on it for a long time, and I suggested doing it as duo."
I'm Thru with Love goes back: Bing Crosby sang it on his very first nationwide radio broadcast in 1951. "I looked at it years ago, fiddled with it, and put it away," says Diana. "But Tommy [LiPuma] and I have this telepathy thing going on all the time. he suggested it. I said, "Oh, I don't know,' We tried it. He said, 'Man, you gotta do it!' So we did it - and I'm glad."
Deed I Do and A Blossom Fell are double-decker tributes. The intro on Deed I Do is lifted from "Bass Face," an Original by Ray Brown, jazz's most valuable bass player, who heard Diana playing in a Canadian restaurant 15 years ago, took her under his wing and started talking her up. As for A Blossom Fell, it's sung here in homage to another Cole: Freddie, Nat's younger brother, a superb singer and pianist in his own right. "I went into Bradley's one night to see Freddie," Diana explains, "I'd never met him or heard him live. And when I walked in, he was singing A Blossom Fell, and I said to myself, Oh, this is so beautiful, I wish I could sing it like that.' So simple - not too dramatic."
No salute to Nat Cole would be complete without a stand-up ballad, and so Diana turns the piano over to Benny Green for If I Had You. She and Benny toured Canada in the summer of 1995, performing a program in honor of Cole that was the brainchild of their manager, Mary Ann Topper, and which became the inspiration for this album. "We're like best buddies - very close friends," Diana says, "I've always admired Benny, and he's always been very supportive of me, so I was really happy to be able to record with him. He's just an incredible musician. And I learned a lot from having him play for me."
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