Search - Natalie Cole :: Still Unforgettable

Not her best

E. Reynolds | Georgia | 09/13/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Natalie has an outstanding voice one of the best I have ever heard and she could sing anything. But, this CD you can tell she was sick when she recorded it. As Natalie knows to sing this kind of music you have to feel it and put those emotions in the song as she did with her prior CDs. This CD she is just singing it and you can't do that with these songs. You have these incredible bands with great music and you have to out do the music, as Smoky Robinson found out when he tried to make a CD with the old classics, which was terrible. I am a big collector of classic music and I know Natalie can do much better than this, but I have a very critical ear when it comes to this kind of music."

Well worth the six year wait

Mark Blackburn | Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada | 09/10/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I awoke this morning thinking about Natalie Cole (her latest CD went on sale today in Canada) and my thoughts were about Natalie's long-ago `Winnipeg connection.'



Back when Natalie was embarking on her own career, and appearing for the first time on TV-network talk shows -- like Mike Douglas (more about that in a moment) Natalie performed at a long-forgotten Winnipeg nightclub -- "Town & Country." It was there Natalie met with the wife of a dear friend -- named Edna Ducharme, then our city's preeminent dress designer (whose creations were once featured in the Chicago Tribune fashion pages).



Natalie asked Edna to custom-design some dresses, and wore them, to Edna's delight, on a couple of network TV appearances. Edna died several years ago (after a long battle with diabetes). And, I'd like to think she's looking down today -- and smiling proudly at Natalie's continuing appreciation for the most exquisitely-beautiful, (one-of-a-kind?) fashion creations --- as modeled by Natalie on the cover and liner notes of this latest `gem' of an album.



That style and grace certainly extends to the music here!



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Do me a favor, would you? When you get this CD, go straight for track 8 - "Here's That Rainy Day" [one of the two best songs written by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen -- the other is "But Beautiful" - the track that follows this one]. Just leave your CD running from there . . . for what may be the BEST sequence of several songs on the album (though every one of these is brilliant, and each arrangement sparkles with subtle, delightful differences.



All my life I've been waiting to hear (what I would declare) the "best-ever" version of "Here's That Rainy Day." Up till this evening, my favorite was Frank Sinatra's reading (to a magnificent Gordon Jenkins' arrangement).



This one, dare I say, surpasses Frank's - filling my heart with joy: Absolutely note-perfect in every way! Natalie's slow and gentle, almost rubato, out-of-tempo, take on "Rainy Day" breathes new life into every word of Johnny Burke's poignant, two-stanza masterpiece. And the arrangement by the (almost) incomparable Alan Broadbent . . . leaves me lost for words. [Correction: Alan did most of the beautiful ballad arranging here . . . but not this one -- another one orchestrated by Nan Schwartz, (see below).]



The track that follows, "But Beautiful" has been performed by many vocalists ("over 400 recordings," Natalie says in her own liner notes) but this rendition is another "best-ever" recording, I think.



[A word about Natalie's delivery: It is as powerful and lovely (and `athletic' and `artless' -- even more like Sinatra than her Dad) and you would never guess that Natalie faces "chemo" for Hepatitis C in the days to come, "and all my hair cut off next week" (she said last night on "Entertainment Tonight").]



Following "But Beautiful," is a genuine surprise - a lovely reading by Natalie (with almost motherly advice) on the never-out-of-date ways to touch a woman's heart: a truly brilliant re-working of a song that won Jack Jones a Grammy in 1960 -- "Lollipops & Roses." (Words and music by Tony Velona - who had two other hits 40 years ago: "Domani" ("Tomorrow") and the instrumental "Music to Watch Girls By").



Just listen to Natalie caress these words (to a subtle and sublime orchestration by a "new" arranger - a woman named Nan Schwartz): It's like opening a door to something so fresh and fragrant. (I envy those who are hearing this one for the first time!)



"One day she'll smile . . .

Next day she'll cry

Minute-to-minute

You'll never know why . . .



Tell her you care,

Each time you speak

Make it her Birthday

Each day of the week . . .



"Nan Schwartz" - you get my vote as "Best New Arranger" 2008 - hope you help Natalie win another Grammy! (Any relation to Arthur S. of "Dancing in the Dark" fame, I wonder?)



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Half these songs are ballads -- brilliantly-performed and superbly orchestrated, employing a 48-piece string section. The other seven tracks are "swing" performances just as brilliantly arranged for 'Big Band' -- with a 19-member brass section, including trumpet great, Warren Luening, (who does a solo and closing obligato 'to die for' on "Here's That Rainy Day." The big-band is arranged (mostly) by master bass player, Jim Hughart.



Frank Sinatra, who did a brilliant, late-in-life rendition of "Until The Real Thing Comes Along" would forgive me, I believe, for saying this version by Natalie "retires the trophy" [even though it could not include some additional stanzas, custom-written for Frank by Sammy Cahn, (which include perhaps `dated' references like)



"I'd walk on burning coals for you,

I'd take the Chrysler - leave the Rolls, for you!"]



For the `closer' to this great album, Natalie selected Cole Porter's IT'S ALL RIGHT WITH ME . . . and it is note-perfect in every way. The big band musicians dance with Natalie at a quick fox-trot tempo -- a sparkling, tightly-arranged orchestration by Harold Wheeler, who allows some joyful 'call-and-response' between the singer and her all-star cast. Simply brilliant!



Natalie's `duet' with her Dad on the opening track provides a shining example of improved recording engineering, in the 17 years since Nat & Natalie's first Grammy-winning duet, for the "Unforgettable" album [which has sold an astonishing 14 million copies, and is always (including this very day) Amazon.com sales-ranked in the "Top 250" of the 2-to-3-million CDs now available at the world's biggest website).]



Naturally, Natalie went straight to the "Tower that Nat Built" - Capitol Studios, Hollywood, to ensure that this album, like her others, would be "recorded and mixed by (the legendary) Al Schmitt" who has managed to capture even greater `spatial depth' of individual musicians; perhaps his best work to date?



I've listened to this album four times tonight (five as I type this) and it just keeps getting better and better! I've been smiling with joy for so long now, my facial muscles are hurting!



One more thing: Something I look forward to each time Natalie gifts us with a new album of standards (this is her fourth such offering but the first one in six years). There's always a great tune most of us have never heard before. This time, it's "Coffee Time" - a deceptively simple little `riff' tune (as Frank Sinatra used to call them) - this one written by my second-favorite composer, Harry (Salvatore Guaragna) Warren.



Natalie (in her delightful, but too-brief) liner notes gives credit where its due - "to Tony Bennett."



"I ran into Tony on several occasions in 2007 and he kept bugging me about doing this song! I had never heard of it. But he said I would thank him . . . and he was right: Introduced in 1945 by Fred Astaire and recorded by the late Mike Douglas the talk show host, [there we are, Edna!] as well as by singer Carmen McRae. It's totally cool, Tony - thank you!"



[NOTE to Natalie: On your spring tour this year, you made one stop in a Canadian city (lucky Halifax, Nova Scotia). Just wanted to say, we have a world-class symphony orchestra here in the "world's coldest major city." And we promise you a warm welcome, should you find your way back here!]



Mark Blackburn

Winnipeg, Manitoba

"

Dullsville

C. A. Moore | Memphis, TN USA | 09/17/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This is not Natalie Cole at her best.

She's in pretty good voice, but her singing lacks spark and energy (maybe it has to do with her illness), but Ms. Cole has certainly sounded more lively and sassier on other recordings.

This is a throwback to those easy listening albums of the 1950s and 1960s. I was expecting Natalie to take the genre forward.

The arrangements are dull rather than lively and some of these arrangements tend to sound the same. What happened to the swing of a song "The Best Is Yet To Come?" Natalie's version is just average.

To have made Still Unforgettable truly great, Natalie Cole could have used the services of veteran producer and big band arranger Quincy Jones."