Nat King Cole Centennial

Nat King Cole would have been 100 yesterday. That's surprising to me - Sinatra's 100th was in 2015, Ella Fitzgerald's in 2017 - he was younger than either but passed so long ago that it seems like he belonged to an earlier generation. I only remember a couple of things he did live, when I was a little kid. My parents loved him - my mom would blast "Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer" whenever it came on the radio. I won't get into a Cole-Crosby argument, but just say that Cole is Crosby's only challenger as a Christmas singer.

Cole could sing anything. My own taste is for light songs, and this is one of my favorites:

Cole was a wonderful singer, with a warm, romantic voice. He was also a brilliant jazz pianist. Piano was his first choice, but his voice was so great that people kept his singing in demand. He was the first black entertainer to have his own TV show in the Fifties, but it was taken off the air because segregationists in the South objected. Smoked like a chimney, died of lung cancer.