Nat King Cole at 102

Yesterday was the late Nat King Cole's birth date. An impossibly talented pianist and vocalist who not only re-invented romantic pop singing in the album era but also helped pave the way for desegregation.

Here are 10 of my favorite Cole vocal recordings and a bonus:

Here's When Your Love Has Gone, with an arrangement by Billy May...



Here's Chester Conn and Sammy Gallop's Night Lights, with an arrangement by Nelson Riddle...



Here's Hub Atwood and Mel Leven's Tell Me About Yourself, with an arrangement by Dave Cavanaugh...



Here's Bobby Troup's You're Looking at Me, with Willie Smith on alto saxophone...



Here's Leroy Anderson and Mitchell Parish's Serenata, with the George Shearing Quintet and strings arranged by Ralph Carmichael...



Here's Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh's Rules of the Road, with an arrangement by Billy May...

 

Here's Hughie Prince, Robert Merrill, Marcia Neil and Philip Broughton's Funny (Not Much), with an arrangement by Ralph Carmichael...



Here's Leah Worth and Pete Rugolo's The Story of My Wife, with an arrangement by Rugolo...



Here's Irving Gordon's Unforgettable, with an superb arrangement by Nelson Riddle...



And here's Joe Sherman and George David Weiss's That Sunday That Summer, with an arrangement by Ralph Carmichael, from a BBC TV special An Evening With Nat King Cole in 1963...



Bonus: Here's The Nat King Cole Musical Story from 1955, a short in Technicolor and CinemaScope with Nat King Cole on his singing career...