JAZZ REVIEW : A Solid Set From Freddy Cole at Cinegrill

It was just like a family reunion Tuesday when Freddy Cole began his two-week stint at the Cinegrill. Everyone in the room, it seemed, was either a relative of Nat King Cole or a friend of a relative, here to welcome the youngest brother of the legendary singer-pianist.

The last of five siblings, Freddy Cole uses the group sound--piano, guitar and bass--that Nat was the first to popularize in the 1940s. Vocally, Freddy bears an astonishing resemblance to Nat, even in his pronunciation: Wild comes out as wowld.

All comparisons aside, the younger Cole’s timbre, phrasing, control and material are attractive, whether you are the under-45 fan, to whom Nat Cole is only a dim figure on black and white TV, or the nostalgic listener for whom Freddy Cole marks a welcome return to an in-person sound long missed. (Nat Cole died in 1965.)

At the piano, there is very little similarity. The younger Cole’s horn-like single note lines are well structured, but once, during a Cole Porter medley, he lapsed into a quasi-lounge style. Jerry Byrd on guitar and Delbert Felix on bass supplied good support and modestly successful solos.

Cole’s strengths are his warm ballads--notably “Where Can I Go Without You”--and a few original songs such as his witty “Brandy” and the evocative “Quiet Storm.”

Almost an hour into the show, after carefully avoiding any songs associated with his legendary brother, Cole plunged into “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” continuing with everything from “Mona Lisa” to “Sweet Lorraine.” With his niece Natalie sitting in the front row, he also sang “Unforgettable.”

In the encores he played on the brotherly ties, first with humor, on the tongue-in-cheek original “I’m Not My Brother, I’m Me,” and then with pathos, on the slightly mawkish but sincerely stated tribute, “He Was the King.”