Maria Cole

While Nat Cole was certainly the most famous member of his family, he wasn't the only singer in the brood. His brothers Ike and Freddy both sang professionally - Freddy still does, in fact. Nat married a singer, Maria Hawkins Ellington, and their daughter Natalie was very successful as well.

Nat and Maria Cole

Maria Cole had sung with Duke Ellington and Count Basie before her marriage, and made occasional records and personal appearances in the 1950s and 60s. Today's post is devoted to her second LP, made for the Dot label in 1960.

It's a pleasant outing in the pop style of the era - cooing backing vocals, piano triplets, swirling strings and the double-tracked alto sax of arranger-conductor Billy Vaughn, Dot's music director.

Jet Magazine, 1955

Vaughn was working around Cole's limited vocal range and questionable pitch, but he doesn't do her any favors by packing the program with peppy chestnuts like "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "By the Light of the Silvery Moon," which aren't suited to her. She does best with the pensive "So Help Me" and worst with the pop R&B of "(O Baby Mine) I Get So Lonely," a hit for the Four Knights in 1954. She sounds far too ladylike for the latter fare, particularly when set against the kitschy Vaughn arrangement. Cole might have done better with more sensitive backing and better song selection.

Even so, her low-pitched voice is agreeable, and this is a better record than I had recalled. I pulled it out of storage at the request of vocal maven Will Friedwald, who was curious to hear it. Let me finish with a plug for Will's latest book, The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums, which hits the shops November 7. It's sure to be the latest in a long line of erudite and entertaining reads by Will, whose earlier tomes include the astonishingly thorough Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, Sinatra! the Song is You, Jazz Singing and many others.