20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT..., December 30, 2003
This review is from: The Classic Singles (Audio CD)
Nat King Cole was one of the top performers of the 20th century, but it seems like only Capitol fails to realise that. They are the guardians of his musical legacy, the ones that have the responsibility of making his music live on well into the 21st century, and what do they give us? Compilation after compilation of previously released material (when hundreds of unreleased tracks still lay dormant in their vaults),and when they finally come up with an interesting project, they mess it up with average sound quality!
I wouldn't quite agree with the notion, expressed by another reviewer, that Capitol should leave the Nat Cole material solely in the hands of their Capitol Jazz label... Capitol Jazz has excellent releases, liner notes, packaging, etc. (The 'Billy May sessions' 2-CD set, for instance, is brilliant), but it doesn't mean that plain Capitol isn't capable of equaling that quality, even surpassing it, given the right budget and an able team of archivists and reviewers (the 'Complete Capitol Singles' by Sinatra is a case in point). Only problem is, Sinatra sells more than Cole, and so they refuse to invest the same amount of money on an artist that is not so "cost-efficient"...
What a disgrace that they forgot where they come from... Capitol Tower, the symbol in their logo and headquarters for more than half a century, was described at its creation as "the house that Nat Cole built", referring to the huge popularity of his Trio recordings that gave the label its biggest revenue in the 1940s.
The Nat King Cole catalog on Capitol has been artificially divided between the two labels. Why not leave the Trio era recordings to Capitol Jazz and the later, solo recordings to the main label? After all, they are exactly in the same vein as the Sinatra recordings of the same period!
As for this here collection, I still dream of two separate singles sets: 'the Trio years'containing all Trio single sides, and 'the Solo years', covering the second half of his career. Stereo recordings whenever possible, all the sides (there were quite a few, but real fans would agree to pay a little more for it). Not only Nat deserves this, but his fans do, too... and the 21st century music listeners deserve to discover the legacy of one of the most extraordinary vocalists and pianists of all time.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Capitol should never have done this, November 17, 2003
This review is from: The Classic Singles (Audio CD)
Make no mistake: Nat is a top choice for greatest "pop" and "jazz" vocalist of all time, and this set is rich in wondrous musicality sure to be a treat your whole life long! Nat is amazing and the music is delightful. That is why Nat King Cole's music deserves to be released, and in the best manner. Further, Nat was the artist most crucial to making Capitol a substantial label. Instead, he gets treatment such as this set. If you want an example of how not to produce reissues for instruction in the field, we have a marvelous example right here. Consider every angle:
Content. There has been far too many random compilations and hits packages issued of Nat King Cole's music over the decades, from horrible to great. The greatest is the lauded 1992 4-CD box set titled simply 'Nat King Cole' or sometimes 'Capitol Masters: Nat King Cole', spanning his recording career with 100 well-chosen tracks, excellent notes and good sound. Yet despite the countless compilations, Nat's many singles (45 rpm singles from the '50's and '60's) have yet to be comprehensively reissued. Capitol made a 'singles' box set for Frank Sinatra about 15 years ago. A 'singles' box set for Nat, then, is long, long overdue.
This set exploits the market for a release of that segment of Nat's catalog by using the need for a singles set to release yet another random compilation. Attempting to repeat the success of the 1992 career spanning box set, this set again spans Nat's career, consisting of some of his singles along with scores of tracks released either prior to the existence of singles or singles of tracks also included in Nat's albums. Cleverly and deceptively titled 'The Classic Singles', it is a comprehensive collection of neither the classics nor the singles and more than a few tracks that are neither.
I'll give you some specific examples:
'The Magic Song' is a children's song from 1947. Songs from before extended play records existed (1949) can't rightly be called singles. Commercial records were all 78s, simply known as, well, records. Even if you did count his 300-plus pre-1949 78s as singles, this was from a project for a packaged set of 78s, 'King Cole for Kids'. So it doesn't count as a project for singles, yet it's included here!
Another specific example is the case of 'Ramblin' Rose' and 'Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy, Days of Summer'. 'Ramblin' Rose' was a single first, and its success led to the album of the same name. You can argue whether it should be included here, as it is already available on the album. 'Summer', though, was a theme to an album of the same name that was also released as a single. It was intended for the album, so you'd think getting it on its album would be the way to go. You wouldn't need it here. If you're being super complete, fine, but where then are other singles that weren't on any album?
If, then, the point was to make a collection of "classics", well, as mentioned, it fails there too. A specific example is 'A Boy From Texas - A Girl From Tennessee', which is among the few weak Nat King Cole Trio songs ever. Out of hundreds of wonderful Trio songs we pick that one? With so many of his songs stuck in the vaults, we didn't need another grab bag like this.
Sound quality. With countless numbers of good sound engineers on this planet, somehow Capitol found one that evidently has no idea what instruments or good recordings sound like to entrust with the transfer of Nat King Cole's masters. Yes it sounds passable in a cheap-electronics way, but putting use on the original source tapes and discs just to get a low resolution result like this ought to be forbidden. A large operation like Capitol should be able to find better staff. I can't imagine the waste of time and money that was spent ridiculously over-processing the sound to "improve" what sounded far richer before it met their misguided remastering engineer.
Packaging. It's pretty. Fairly handsome. The notes are all right, but naturally not critical of the obvious failures in the compilation, like, oh, missing a load of the singles. Still they managed to go wrong. The package doesn't even safely store the CDs, which are, after all, kind of important to a CD set. Be careful buying a set if used and do so only if you can return potential defects. Not that I can suggest you buy it at all for anywhere near the asking price.
If one wants a retrospective, I recommend the aforementioned other 4-CD set titled simply 'Nat King Cole' from 1992 - it is well compiled, containing more prime cuts, including many of the finest here - and even rates a somewhat nicer, richer sound quality. It has recently been reissued and is less expensive to boot! In fact, all but a dozen of the 103 cuts on this set (that I know of, probably less) can better be collected elsewhere.
It should have been very easy to make the set that was needed. Since the albums are going to be reissued on other CDs (right, Capitol?), compile the tracks issued only on singles. On suitable equipment, play back the already well-recorded open-reel session tapes, which require little mixing or processing, to your CD master. Get someone knowledgeable and appreciative to write some notes. List the info for the tracks. Make a package that's stylistically appropriate and attractive. Obviously, see that the package stores the point of it all, the CDs, safely. Release. How easy can it get?
Despite the useful ratings received, this review has been edited for better articulation to be more useful to any perspective buyer, and to politely temper the disappointment this release causes. A Verve masters series reissue this is not, but the failing is larger than the work of the Capitol staff or the Cole Estate on this issue alone; so much time has passed, and so much of Nat's recorded work is still not available, that this sort of release just isn't good enough to spend anyone's time on.
If Capitol and the Cole Estate honestly wanted Nat's music out there and being enjoyed in the best way possible, they'd insist on recalling or burying this embarrassment, make his music available in comprehensive compilations, carefully account for and archive all his working materials, and of course find good engineers (such as Steve Hoffman) to transfer. They might also note what we should know in all humility: time is on nobody's side. On the project list should be a real set of, imagine, all Nat's classic singles. What does the current Nat catalog say of them? Well it's not flattering, but they've had 20 years to work on it.
Meanwhile, Capitol's owner/partner in England, EMI, has, in this very same month, finally finished issuing the last of Nat's original albums to be issued on CD (for the UK audience) - something the company Nat recorded them for, Capitol, still has not managed to approach despite having had twenty years to do it.
As time is passing, it is becoming increasingly obvious that Capitol and the Cole Estate are delivering less than the measure this great man's life's work deserves.
-CJ
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