Complete original sheet music editions.

One of the most popular and memorable American musicians of the 20th century, Nat King Cole (1919-65) is remembered today as both a pianist and a singer, a feat rarely accomplished in the world of popular music. Now, in this complete life and times biography, author Will Friedwald offers a new take on this fascinating musician, framing him first as a bandleader and then as a star. In Cole's early phase, Friedwald explains, his primary task of keeping his trio going was just as much of a focus for him as his own playing and singing, always a collective or group performance. In the second act, Cole's collaborators were more likely to be arranger-conductors like Nelson Riddle and Gordon Jenkins, rather than his sidemen on bass and guitar. In the first act, his sidemen were equals, in the second phase, his collaborators were tasked exclusively with putting the focus on him, making him sound good, while being largely invisible themselves. Friedwald brings his full musical knowledge to bear in putting the man in the work, demonstrating how this duality appears over and over again in Cole's life and career: jazz vs. pop, solo vs. trio, piano vs. voice, wife number one (Nadine) vs. wife number two (Maria), the good songs vs. the less-than-good songs, the rhythm numbers vs. the ballads, the funny songs and novelties vs. the "serious" songs of love and loss, Cole as an advocate for the Great American Songbook vs. Cole the intrepid explorer of other options: world music, rhythm & blues, country & western. Cole was different from his contemporaries in other ways; for roughly ten years after the war, the majority of hitmakers on the pop charts were veterans of the big band experience, from Sinatra on down.

Traces the musical career of the jazz singer, from the formation of his jazz trio to his television show, and describes his desire to battle segregation by playing to all audiences.

(P/V/G Composer Collection). 50 of the most memorable songs from this famed songwriting duo in arrangements for piano, voice and guitar. Includes: Bess, You Is My Woman * But Not for Me * Clap Yo' Hands * Do It Again * Embraceable You * Fascinating Rhythm * How Long Has This Been Going On? * I Got Rhythm * I Loves You, Porgy * I've Got a Crush on You * Let's Call the Whole Thing Off * Love Is Here to Stay * The Man I Love * Nice Work If You Can Get It * Of Thee I Sing * Rhapsody in Blue * Someone to Watch over Me * Strike up the Band * Summertime * Swanee * They All Laughed * They Can't Take That Away from Me * and more.

Collins reveals the stories behind the greatest hits of Christmas--songs enjoyed for generations. "Stories Behind the Greatest Hits of Christmas" is a treasure-trove of inspiration, information, and the kind of magic that makes Christmas the beloved holiday it is.

This exhaustively researched biography of the great pianist and singer Nat King Cole delves into his storied musical career and life.

The definitive study of arranging by America's premiere composer, arranger and conductor. A "must" for every musician interested in a greater understanding of arranging. Includes chapters on instrumentation, orchestration and Nelson Riddle's work with Sinatra, Cole and Garland.

(Piano/Vocal/Guitar Artist Songbook). 2015 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Frank Sinatra and celebrations and concerts are planned for the whole year. This songbook gathers piano/vocal/guitar arrangements of 100 of Ol' Blue Eye's finest in a fitting tribute to one of the greatest entertainers of all time! Songs include: All the Way * Come Fly with Me * I Get a Kick Out of You * I've Got the World on a String * I've Got You Under My Skin * The Lady Is a Tramp * My Way * Night and Day * One for My Baby (And One More for the Road) * Strangers in the Night * Summer Wind * (Love Is) The Tender Trap * Witchcraft * Young at Heart * and more.

The author of the magisterial A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers now approaches the great singers and their greatest work in an innovative and revelatory way: through considering their finest albums, which is the format in which this music was most resonantly organized and presented to its public from the 1940s until the very recent decline of the CD. It is through their albums that Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, and the rest of the glorious honor roll of jazz and pop singers have been most tellingly and lastingly appreciated, and the history of the album itself, as Will Friedwald sketches it, can now be seen as a crucial part of musical history. We come to understand that, at their finest, albums have not been mere collections of individual songs strung together arbitrarily but organic phenomena in their own right. A Sinatra album, a Fitzgerald album, was planned and structured to show these artists at their best, at a specific moment in their artistic careers. Yet the albums Friedwald has chosen to anatomize go about their work in a variety of ways. There are studio and solo albums: Lee’s Black Coffee, June Christy’s Something Cool, Cassandra Wilson’s Belly of the Sun. There are brilliant collaborations: famous ones—Tony Bennett and Bill Evans, Louis Armstrong and Oscar Peterson—and wonderful surprises like Doris Day and Robert Goulet singing Annie Get Your Gun. There are theme albums—Dinah Washington singing Fats Waller, Maxine Sullivan singing Andy Razaf, Margaret Whiting singing Jerome Kern, Barb Jungr singing Bob Dylan, and the sublime Jo Stafford singing American and Scottish folk songs. There are also stunning concert albums like Ella in Berlin, Sarah in Japan, Lena at the Waldorf, and, of course, Judy at Carnegie Hall. All the greats are on hand, from Kay Starr and Carmen McRae to Jimmy Scott and Della Reese (Della Della Cha Cha Cha). And, from out of left field, the astounding God Bless Tiny Tim. Each of the fifty-seven albums discussed here captures the artist at a high point, if not at the expected moment, of her or his career. The individual cuts are evaluated, the sequencing explicated, the songs and songwriters heralded; anecdotes abound of how songs were born and how artists and producers collaborated. And in appraising each album, Friedwald balances his own opinions with those of musicians, listeners, and critics. A monumental achievement, The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums is an essential book for lovers of American jazz and popular music.