The King Cole Trio
Piano, guitar and bass, without drums: Nat Cole with Oscar Moore and Wesley Prince, later Johnny Miller. Pictured on the radio programme King Cole Trio Time, 1947.
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About
The Story
Nat King Cole (1919–1965) was an American pianist and singer, born Nathaniel Adams Coles in Montgomery, Alabama, and raised in Chicago, where his mother, the church organist, taught him the organ.
In Los Angeles at the end of the 1930s he formed the King Cole Trio with Oscar Moore on guitar and Wesley Prince on bass: piano, guitar and bass, no drums, a sound that became the model for the small groups that followed. The trio signed with the new Capitol Records in 1943; “Straighten Up and Fly Right” was a hit the next year, and in March 1945 their first album was the first number one on Billboard’s album chart.
Then his voice took over: “The Christmas Song”, “Nature Boy”, “Mona Lisa”, “Unforgettable”, and albums arranged by Nelson Riddle and Gordon Jenkins. From 1956 to 1957 he hosted The Nat King Cole Show on NBC, the first nationally broadcast television show hosted by a Black American. In 1958 he recorded Cole Español, sung entirely in Spanish, the first of three Spanish-language albums.
He never left the piano: as late as 1956 he recorded an all-jazz album with his trio, After Midnight. He died in Santa Monica on 15 February 1965, at forty-five.
This is a demo site, a tribute built to show what a musician’s page on TJP can hold. Its dates are the demo’s own.
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The Nat King Cole Show
NBC, November 1956 to December 1957: the first nationally broadcast television show hosted by a Black American, with guests such as Harry Belafonte, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and Mel Tormé.
Read moreCole Español
Sung entirely in Spanish in 1958, the orchestra recorded in Havana and his voice in Los Angeles. A Mis Amigos and More Cole Español followed.
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Snapshots
At the piano, New York, about June 1947.William P. Gottlieb, Library of Congress With Oscar Moore and Wesley Prince, New York, about July 1946.William P. Gottlieb, Library of Congress His hands, New York, about June 1947.William P. Gottlieb, Library of Congress The trio at the Zanzibar, New York, about July 1946.William P. Gottlieb, Library of Congress At home in Los Angeles, 1964.Los Angeles Times, UCLA Library, CC BY 4.0 With Harry Belafonte on The Nat King Cole Show, 1957. NBC Television