{"id":2618,"date":"2020-12-17T15:41:13","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T15:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/?p=2618"},"modified":"2020-12-17T15:49:23","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T15:49:23","slug":"hittin-the-ramp-the-early-years-1936-1943-by-nat-king-cole-review-a-master-of-the-keys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/17\/hittin-the-ramp-the-early-years-1936-1943-by-nat-king-cole-review-a-master-of-the-keys\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Hittin\u2019 the Ramp: The Early Years (1936-1943)\u2019 by Nat King Cole Review: A Master of the Keys"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Before he built a formidable career as a singer, Cole was a great jazz pianist; a new set reminds us of his virtuosity.<\/h2>\n

PHOTO:\u00a0CAPITOL RECORDS PHOTO ARCHIVE<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Michael Hepworth<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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By\u00a0Martin Johnson<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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HOLLYWOOD (Perfect Music Today) 12\/17\/20\/–Suave, debonair\u00a0and almost impossibly refined, Nat King Cole possessed a voice to match his looks and demeanor; it was a warm, precise baritone, and those virtues made him one of the most popular and important singers in 20th-century music. Yet before he built a formidable career as a singer, Cole (1919-1965) was a great jazz pianist\u2014a pivotal musician of his era. He is the bridge between such giants of the instrument as Earl \u201cFatha\u201d Hines and Teddy Wilson and the postwar era\u2019s Oscar Peterson and Ahmad Jamal.<\/div>\n
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Cole\u2019s piano virtuosity is a major feature of \u201cHittin\u2019 the Ramp: The Early Years (1936-1943),\u201d a new boxed set of seven compact discs or 10 LPs from Resonance Records. Most of the 183 tracks present Cole\u2019s extraordinary trio featuring guitarist Oscar Moore and bassist Wesley Prince or Johnny Miller, an ensemble that set the template for many of the drummer-free outfits that followed.<\/p>\n

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Cole, who dropped out of high school in his native Chicago, began his career early; while still a teenager he was leading his trio in Los Angeles. He often recorded for transcription services, companies that made recordings specifically for radio broadcast, and \u201cHittin\u2019 the Ramp\u201d is a comprehensive collection of these, many of which have been out of print for decades. The music is a far cry from the lush balladry of his signature hits \u201cUnforgettable\u201d and \u201cMona Lisa.\u201d Instead, the trio performs jump blues and jivey shuffles with enthusiastic creativity. It\u2019s easy to imagine Cole and his bandmates eagerly putting their spin on every song they can get their hands on. They perform popular songs of earlier eras like \u201cSheik of Araby\u201d and \u201cSwanee River,\u201d emerging jazz classics like \u201cCaravan\u201d and \u201cBody and Soul,\u201d and even nursery rhymes like \u201cThree Blind Mice.\u201d Each tune is rearranged\u2014and in some cases all but reinvented\u2014boosted by virtuosic solos and exhilarating interplay. It is this spirit that makes the set enjoyable throughout; there\u2019s an unmistakable sense of master musicians spreading their wings.<\/p>\n

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This collection is a showcase not only for Cole\u2019s piano but for Moore\u2019s guitar. Moore (1916-1981)\u2014a brilliant musician who rarely worked in any other setting and retired from the business at an early age\u2014contributes bluesy accents and biting solos to these tunes, often offsetting Cole\u2019s droll brilliance. His style is also a link between early guitar greats like Eddie Durham, Eddie Lang and Charlie Christian and such later ones as Wes Montgomery, Grant Green and Kenny Burrell. One of the essays in the 56-page booklet included in the set is a well-deserved appreciation of Moore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Michael Hepworth<\/p>\n

287 S.Robertson Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211<\/p>\n

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Before he built a formidable career as a singer, Cole was a great jazz pianist; a new set reminds us of his virtuosity. PHOTO:\u00a0CAPITOL RECORDS PHOTO ARCHIVE Michael Hepworth By\u00a0Martin Johnson HOLLYWOOD (Perfect Music Today)… <\/p>\n

Continue Reading \u2018Hittin\u2019 the Ramp: The Early Years (1936-1943)\u2019 by Nat King Cole Review: A Master of the Keys<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[1421,1422,875,1420],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2618"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2627,"href":"https:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618\/revisions\/2627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}