Nat King Cole #1521

Caption from poster__      Nat King Cole    " Sponsors don't have guts. Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark. - Nat King Cole on the cancellation of the "Nat King Cole Show" for lack of advertisers, December 1957.     Pianist, singer and bandleader Nat "King" Cole may have made his name as a singer, but his work as a pianist is most musically significant. Taking the intricacies of Earl "Fatha" Hines' right-hand lines and coupling them with the more spare, left-hand ones developed by Count Basie, Cole's impact on subsequent generations of pianists is far-reaching. Cole was born in Montgomery, Ala., on March 17, 1917. By the age of 4, Cole's family had moved to Chicago, where he started playing organ and singing in his father's church. Along with his jazz musician brothers Fred, Eddie and Isaac, Nat made his recording debut on Decca (1936) for the group Eddie Cole's Solid Swingers. Cole left Chicago that same year, and eventually settled in Los Angeles. He formed his trio with guitaris