SH Spotlight The Nat King Cole Trio AFTER MIDNIGHT AP 45 RPM 3 disk vinyl set still in stock at Acoustic Sounds!

The part that is the difference between £25 and £50 when cash is tight!!

I might sell my Zep 2 UK plum to help finance the purchase.

Eddie

 

I already have mine on preorder from Chad, Steve!

 

Well I did it. I put my order in...for After Midnight, St Loius Blues and Just One Of Those Things...all on 45 rpm...

I was going to buy the SACD but 1) I can't play SACD and 2) I would have spent the rest of my time lusting after that vinyl!!

Eddie

 

Great, been waiting for it.

 

Steve,

Was Take 2 of "Paper Moon" on the session reel? Take 1, which concludes the disc and has Nat forgetting the words, is followed immediately by Gillette announcing Take 3.

 

Thanks, Steve. Loving the disc...and the extras you included. The 20 complete and partial takes that have been released over the years are by far the most of any single Cole album.

 

I'm sure a few of us around here would find tremendous value in the opportunity to hear everything that producer Lee had preserved, in the same way that others clamor to hear every second of The Beatles or Sinatra et. al. But the nature with which you treat Cole's catalog, always seemingly with an eye to maintaining its integrity, is, I think, an appropriate balance between those conflicting interests.

 

Got home at 2am last night from Seattle. In my groggy haze this morning going through my pile of mail I found this treasure. "After Midnight". Wow. I'm on my second play through now. There are new dimensions to the sound, even on this classic album I know so well.

The liner notes by Chris Hall, which I've just started reading, are witty, insightful, and beautifully written.

And a new version of Just You, Just Me! Oh my. This is one of my top ten songs in all of Nat King Cole. And take one is just as good as the album track it seems to me, but subtly different throughout.

And Lee Gilette's comment during the mess up of It's Only a Paper Moon at the end is hilarious!

Anyway, many thanks to all involved. I'm a very happy camper.

Highly recommended to all. Even if you're not usually a Nat King Cole fan, this may win you over--at least to this album.

 

In more recent times we are accustomed to the idea that an album is typically a statement of material which the artist(s) will use as a key part their latest concert tours. Sometimes an album is almost a commissioned work, that is the artist has a contract with a label and produce material in some kind of arrangement with the label. Many jazz albums on the other hand are opportunities a producer, label or (in odd cases) artist seizes to record some music, usually in association with other musicians. Classical is often more literally A&R, an Artist & Repertoire affair: record artist X performing piece Y of repertoire as release Z.

After Midnight was not produced due to typical motives. Just why it was produced has not been discussed at any depth as far as I had seen. Perhaps After Midnight is so representative of the artist, so popular and so easily enjoyed that its existence has been taken for granted.

A question that has often been asked is, "why were there no further efforts in this direction?" To which the typical response or assumption has been along the lines of a vague observation that Nat stopped doing jazz and playing piano because popular singing was more profitable. However, Nat never literally stopped playing piano and After Midnight proved that the commercial market for Nat singing and playing piano was huge. The reality was a bit more complex.

In writing the liners for Analogue Production's editions of After Midnight, in addition to covering the music in a hopefully fitting style, I hoped to provide a context for the album which finally presented a bit more understanding of After Midnight in terms of why it exists, what it is and why it remained completely unique in spite of its great success.

 

Thanks to all.

 

Ben, thank you for the kind compliments.

Oh absolutely. As Nat and Lee are masters at their craft I'd be great if that were possible for those interested, although of course these are not that kind of release. It'd have to be a more specialized kind of issue oriented more to a specific, scholarly interest. Of course then you also have the commercial and legal considerations. Alas by the time they wouldn't be an issue I doubt we'd still be around (not to mention the material or interest in it)...

Fascinating.

 

Let's See -- A Completist Set...

Who do you think they are -- Mosaic Records? That would mean a 12-record 45rpm set...which would probably retail for $250.

 

That would mean 4 CDs for about $68.

 

Chris Hall not only gives the best explanation I've seen for why After Midnight was a unique and never-to-be-repeated concept album, but he also gives a track-by-track and musician-by-musician appreciation for each wonderful song on this album.

An album this fine deserves liner notes that are a masterpiece, and our own Chris Hall has filled our table full of insight and information--poetically and humorously told.

Let me give you just a taste of the first paragraph of his very enjoyable essay:

"Once upon a time, ol' 'King' Cole was a merry old soul and a piano playing soul was he. He played piano, he sang some songs and he led his Trio three. Nat Cole had paid his dues, received his appellation of King and eventually achieved great commercial and creative success as the leader, pianist, lead vocalist and arranger of The Nat 'King' Cole Trio, a jazz combo of piano, guitar and bass started in 1937. Whether swingin' hep novelties, knockin' 'em out with deft jazz instrumentals or offering some of the most persuasive balladry around, The Nat 'King' Cole Trio swung their way from obscurity to become a true pop culture phenomenon...."

That's just the first paragraph of a delightfully complete essay on this classic album.

My only question is whether Chris Hall and the equally great Jordan Taylor might possibly start collaborating on a screenplay for a film or miniseries to bring to life the music of this great hero of jazz and popular song.

 

Sure, but when? I think, unfortunately, it would have been a long, long time. I'm afraid his late 60s-early 70s material may have made "Ramblin" and "Lazy-Hazy" look like "Stardust."

 

I'd be inclined to agree with this. As he was trying to latch onto the latest trend and had success with it, he might have gone farther down that weary road before returning home.

Quite frankly, apart from some tracks here and there from the sing-along and country-ish albums, I'm just not a big fan of them.

 

He was certainly a bit lost, both musically and personally, in his last two years. And yet there were still some gems in there for me even though there was admittedly a lot less first class stuff. I think he would have continued to make a few bits of magic had he lived a bit longer, but of course we'll never know....

As it is, he recorded about four or five whole careers worth of music from the late 1930s through December of 1964.