{"id":3452,"date":"2012-03-17T00:24:57","date_gmt":"2012-03-17T07:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=3452"},"modified":"2012-03-17T11:41:35","modified_gmt":"2012-03-17T18:41:35","slug":"weekend-extra-nat-cole-meets-st-patrick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2012\/03\/weekend-extra-nat-cole-meets-st-patrick\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Extra: Nat Cole Meets St. Patrick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nat Cole was born March 17, 1917. He did not appear to be Irish, but his birthday falls on St. Patrick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Day. What better excuse to remember <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Nat-Cole-Head-Shot.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Nat-Cole-Head-Shot.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Nat Cole Head Shot\" width=\"160\" height=\"154\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3453\" \/><\/a>a great musician? Cole did not record many Irish songs, but there is one in his 1946 collaboration with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Lester-Young-Trio\/dp\/B0000046T5\/?_encoding=UTF8&#038;tag=rifftidougram-20&#038;linkCode=ur2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325\"target=\"_blank\">Lester Young\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trio<\/a>. We begin our Nat Cole birthday observance with Lester Young, tenor saxophone; Cole, piano; Buddy Rich, drums, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Peg \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcO My Heart.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In an anomaly that only the person who posted this on <em>YouTube<\/em> could explain, the video continues for about 20 minutes after the four-minute piece ends, so unless you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in love with the fuzzy representation of the album cover, you might want to bail out when the track is through and move to the next section. <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"440\" height=\"355\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dIU0pLqTSss\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><p>Cole became one of the most popular singers in the world&#151;we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get to that toward the end&#151;but he remained a pianist whose touch, harmonic depth, melodic creativity and swing set an example and standard for dozens of others, including Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Tommy Flanagan (not Irish) and a legion of their successors. Here is Cole in 1957 on his television show, with two versions of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tea For Two.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Athough the difference could be in dubbing speed, the first one seems to be in A-flat, the second a half-step up in the more challenging key of A (I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have perfect pitch; I have a piano).<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"440\" height=\"355\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OCEcDhF2LSo\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><p>Now, Nat King Cole and his trio plus Jack Costanzo on conga drum, with the Bobby Troup song that kept Cole on hit parades, juke boxes and the radio for years and will no doubt be on the web and digital downloads for decades more.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"440\" height=\"355\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dCYApJtsyd0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\">Happy Nat Cole\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Birthday. Happy St. Patrick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Day.<\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Shamrock.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Shamrock.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Shamrock\" width=\"60\" height=\"60\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3454\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\">Have a good weekend.<\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nat Cole was born March 17, 1917. He did not appear to be Irish, but his birthday falls on St. Patrick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Day. What better excuse to remember a great musician? Cole did not record many Irish songs, but there is one in his 1946 collaboration with Lester Young\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trio. We begin our Nat Cole birthday [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}