The effortless elegance of Nat King Cole: An interview with twin daughters Casey and Timolin Cole 

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“David Foster is an incredible songwriter and producer and he would even say it, nothing touches ‘The Christmas Song’ by Nat King Cole.”

Casey Cole

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Twin daughters of music legend Nat King Cole, Timolin and Casey Cole of Boca Raton, launched Nat King Cole Generation Hope, Inc. in 2008 to honor the legacy, music and life of their father Nat King Cole and mother Maria Cole after learning of budget cuts in public schools directly affecting the arts.

Is there a more perfect anthem to usher in the Christmas season than icon Nat King  Cole’s The Christmas Song?  Ask almost anyone  their opinion and the answer is resoundingly similar, “I love that song.” Soft billowing violins entwine silken strings of dream-like chords, in an orchestration of emotion, gently transporting us to a nostalgic destination the likes that many of us have never truly known. Yet, somehow we intuitively find resonance with, which enchantingly until its end, there is no escape.     

Written by Mel Torme and Robert Wells, over 50 years ago, “The Christmas Song” remains a universally loved timeless classic, but it was the perfected destiny of Wells and Torme’s lyrics, Cole’s soothing baritone vocals, and an extraordinary Nelson Riddle arrangement, forever etched in our psyche that makes us truly believe reindeers really do know how to fly. Although numerous versions have been produced, unarguably the original cannot be surpassed. Upon hearing The Christmas Song for the first time, regardless of age, it is instinctively recognized as masterful.

Cole, the first African American to host his own television series in 1956 originally became famous as a stunning jazz pianist. In a recent conversation fellow jazz pianist and icon, Monty Alexander shared with me, “Dizzy (Gillespie) once told me his favorite accompanist in the jazz world was Nat Cole.”  However, Cole is unmistakably known the world over as one of the greatest musical artists of all time for his distinguished voice, which once heard becomes “unforgettable.” His immaculate articulation and perfect pitch which according to Riddle, Capitol Records iconic arranger to artists the likes of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Judy Garland, “Nat Cole had what they call absolute pitch…he can hear the note. Mostly, when you write an arrangement you use an introduction for two reasons one is to set the mood of the song and the other is to give the singer the pitch. Nat could sing 30 songs in a row because he knew what the pitch was. He didn’t have to be warned of it, it was all in his head.”


However, it wasn’t only the enchantment of “The Christmas Song” that brought Cole international fame…Cole’s velvet-like vocals elegantly wound themselves throughout ribbons of romantic fantasy with melodic serenades like “Stardust,” “Nature Boy,” “Autumn Leaves,” “The Very Thought of You,” “Too Young,” and of course the everlasting “Unforgettable.” 

Born in 1961, the same year of the most popular version of “The Christmas Song’s” release, I had the privilege of interviewing Casey and Timolin Cole, twin daughters of Maria, (who hails from Cambridge, MA) and Nat King Cole about the experience as daughters of an icon, their father’s copious artistry, as well as his enduring legacy.

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Nat King Cole/Image, NatKingColeGenHope.org

CC: First, although it was four years ago, let me take the opportunity to offer condolences for the passing of your sister Natalie.

Casey: Thank you.

Timolin: Thank you.

CC: Do you think your father knew “The Christmas Song” was a hit?

Casey: I don’t think so. It’s just so simple and a timeless classic. I don’t think he knew that when he and Mel (Torme) sat down and played it. He probably hoped for the best. I think he was somebody who intuitively knew what was going to work, what was going to resonate with people from all over the world. You know when they say just keep it simple? It’s not that elaborate. It speaks of the world of love and togetherness and family.

Timolin: He had wonderful intuition about picking songs that he knew would stick that would be forever timeless classics. I remember “Nature Boy” and “Mona Lisa” were two he picked and knew right away. “They would be hits,”  I remember Will Friedwald said that.

CC: As children, when did you realize your father’s brilliance?  When did you realize he was an icon?

Casey: I think probably when we would go to school, wouldn’t you say Tim?

Timolin: Yes…

Casey: We went to a private school in the San Fernando Valley, The Buckley School. You had quite a few celebrity children that attended. We were in school with Mike Landon. One of our dearest friends is still the late Vincent Price’s daughter, Victoria; Clark Gable’s son, John; John Allen, the Disney family. I mean it just goes on and on. Every other kid in our first grade was either a Landon or a Cole, and that was our life. It started off with our friends’ parents saying, “Oh I loved your father… oh you’re the twins…oh my God, we didn’t know he had twins!”

Timolin: …and stories-and really they would start to cry.

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Maria Cole holding the twins. Photo/Detroit Public Library

CC: …Really?

Timolin: Yes! Yes! They were so moved by who he was not only as an artist but as a person, and they realized that we were three when he passed, so they would start talking to us. It was people who knew him personally. They would start telling us stories about what a wonderful man he was. If it was someone who knew him professionally they would start talking to us about the wonderful person he was to work with as an artist. If it was someone who just loved his music, a fan, they would talk about their first dance at their wedding to “Unforgettable” and what it meant to them. So it was all of these different elements about him that we enjoyed so much because we didn’t know him so it was a big thrill hearing who he was from different people.

CC: Did it surprise you the first time that happened? The first time someone actually cried did you understand what the connection was?

Casey: I think so – I think so. It was our mother who would always talk about our dad – who he was, and what he meant to so many people. He was a trailblazer and I don’t think we ever would have realized it, obviously the stories our mother would tell, but again, it was always people’s reactions that were really touching.

CC: What was the most significant thing said to you about your father?

Casey: The way he would make them feel. I’ll never forget this one lady, “It was as if he was singing to me,”  it was hysterical, she says, “I forgot that my husband was even sitting next to me!” She said he had that magical way of making you feel as if literally you were the only one in the room, and what an incredible way for a woman to feel! So that is one of the most memorable and poignant things someone has ever said to me about dad, he was singing to you and there are very few artists who can get that across. There are artists with fabulous voices but, when you feel like there is a connection that you can relate to him, and what he thinks, like this one-on-one kind of feeling. In this live setting, that is pretty memorable. That kind of memory does not fade away, it lingers; it lingers – and these are 70, 80, 85-year-old people that are telling me these stories.

Timolin: I remember people, all these great artists, saying, he moved mountains. He was an international pop star. He was across the board the example of music being the universal language. He brought people together with his music and that’s really who he was. Through it all, I remember somebody saying, your father inspired humility. He was such a humble, humble man, and really a great soul. I’ve just always loved that quote that describes him: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less,” and to me, that’s what he embodied.

 

CC: When he appeared on television, there was a calm, exuding confidence. That sounds contradictory but that is how he came across. Did that come naturally to him?

Timolin: Artistically that was in his DNA in his soul, when he sat down at the piano. Harry Connick Jr. said, “God just put his hands on his head and said you’re going to be the one with this voice.” All that is to say he was that guy. His fingers just moved magically across those black and white keys but when it came to his stage presence, I think a lot of that had to do with it.  Mom, she never, never took credit for it nor will she ever for who he was artistically, but she did have a lot to do with the poise, and the grace and the sophistication that he evolved into on stage, all that is to say it was natural.

Casey: To add to that, what defined, I think, his greatness and his groundbreaking success, people like to say, yes, he was the greatest jazz pianist of all time but that’s not really what defined him. It was his voice. His voice was liquid. It was liquid – it was very soothing and his pitch was impeccable. When you did see him on stage there is a word people use a lot, ”relaxed.” He was very relaxed. He soothed you, he just kept you relaxed. I think our uncle Freddy Cole said that. It goes back to what the lady said.  “It’s like some magic spell being cast on me.” He had that, he was very hypnotic and you can’t practice that. You can’t learn that, you just are that.

CC: Your father passed when you were both 3. As you became older, have you ever had a situation where you felt your father was around you?

Casey: Oh yeah, absolutely – it happens a lot.

Timolin: Well there was one instance, and it usually happens when Casey and I are together. We were somewhere in a restaurant and we were very down about something. It was quiet and literally, his song came on, and it’s very funny, no matter how loud a restaurant is, when his music is playing, to me it is so recognizable. My father had probably one of the most memorable and recognizable voices of all time. You hear that texture. It was a song that we weren’t familiar with. It wasn’t one of his top songs, but it was one that just really spoke to us like, everything is going to be alright. You know, I often feel like I hear his voice in my head when I get really quiet.

Casey: Of course around this time of year it is very bittersweet. I haven’t heard “The Christmas Song” yet. The moment I hear those first few bars, which were so beautifully done by Nelson Riddle, I think oh my God, the season is here, and I always cry. It’s usually in the car, I’ll be driving anywhere and I start to cry.

CC: Did he require a lot of takes?

Casey: No. He was pretty just right-on – let’s get this done, it’s good the way it is.

CC: Who were some of the significant famous people around you that you recall?

Casey: Harry Belafonte. Carol Burnett –

Timolin: I ended up working for Harry Belafonte, I was his publicist. It had been years since I  had seen him the lady that I had been working for as a publicist brought me in and he was one of our clients and that was a fun thing because he said the last time he saw me was as a baby. It was so funny. Pat was a white woman from North Carolina representing Harry and you know Harry, he said,  “Listen, you gotta get me a black publicist,” so Pat hired me and she said, “Harry I’ve got someone who I think you know,”  and she didn’t tell him who it was, and we went up to his apartment, this brownstone on the upper west side of New York. I’ll never forget it, and I walked in and he said, “Oh good Lord!” When we were working together he would just talk all the time about dad, what a great man he was, and he and his wife were friends with my dad and my mother and he would just tell me wonderful stories of them getting together and hanging out. It was great.

Casey: We went to Vincent Price’s house, we’ve known them since four or five-years-old. We went to Mr. and Mrs. Price’s house one evening to see the landing on the moon. Vincent Price was a big gourmet cook. A lot of people didn’t know that. Victoria has done an amazing job with her father’s legacy. She has all these incredible blogs. Oh, she is amazing! I’ll never forget these incredible hamburgers he made for us and we were just in heaven. They didn’t taste like normal hamburgers. How do you make a fancy hamburger for, what – were we, five or six-years-old? That we are going to enjoy? That was very cool. Johnny Mathis is a big supporter of our organization, Nancy Wilson-we stayed friends with for years, Diahann Carroll, these were people in our home.

CC: There will never be another Nat King Cole. When have you been in the presence of an icon where you were witness to the magic that compared to the status of your father?

Casey: To me, he was always a phenomenon and always will be in spite of the sad reality. I guess we will never know about Michael Jackson. I mean, he had that – he had that.  He had arranged for me to come see him. I was living in LA. I was working at BMI at the time. He has always been a tremendous fan of dad’s. He was on the Sony set in Culver City shooting “Smooth Criminal,” and there was the pool table and the white shoes. I remember walking in on that set and I was shaking! I cannot believe this  – I cannot believe this! I am about to meet Michael Jackson!  Because I knew he was such a tremendous fan of dad’s, I brought our dad’s Christmas CD  and I gave it to him and he almost died. I have downstairs in my living room, this wonderful picture of him and he wrote, “Thank you Casey, Love, Michael Jackson.”  When I saw them shooting that video the magic was just like popping all over the place. It was like missiles were going off in the room! He was amazing! I mean I do believe he was possessed with just that magic and I can’t think of very many people like that, other than perhaps Judy Garland who we never had the pleasure of meeting, she had that magic. I mean I can watch “The Wizard of Oz” with those slippers and that apron and you still just die; you just do. I think Whitney had it, I think our sister did. They either have that extra thing, it’s that extra punch, that extra charisma, that glimmer. It’s that light, that light – that when they leave the room, the room is still on fire and you are still talking about it months later and that was our dad. We are still talking about him how many decades later, and people can still go into that moment about how they felt, what they were wearing, who they were sitting next to, except that woman sitting next to her husband, what earrings they had on. There are very few artists or people that can make you feel like that.

Timolin: There were a couple of instances of going to concerts and realizing whoever I was seeing was going to be bigger than life. I think the one that comes to mind is, he was young – it was Prince. The room lit up and I remember being riveted and watching everybody else being riveted and they were not in their seats because they were all on their feet just standing there focused on this icon. I looked at him like, who is this guy? I was just so amazed at his musicianship and I thought, wow, this is a moment in time. It was really special to just watch his career evolve and explode after that moment and I remember just being so grateful to see him at his budding and loving that, loving who he is, his mystery; he was so mysterious.

CC: Talk about your program honoring your father’s legacy,  Nat King Cole Generation Hope.

Timolin: It started in 2008. Selfless service is something we should all be doing at some point in our lives. We thought it would be a perfect way to honor and preserve our father’s music as well as providing music education to children in need, underserved children within our community and nationwide. Our mission is to provide music education to children with the greatest need and fewest resources and it’s our pride and joy. We love working with the community with business owners with teachers and the schools to create sustainable programs that we can replicate throughout the country. We are a small organization, we are a public charity. We have an instrument refurbishment program. We have a Summer Strings program that involves children in the county they come to Lynn University which is a conservatory. Eighty-five children perform string instruments and it is a two-week program where they are given wonderful mentoring. It’s a summer camp. We have a jazz clinic that we just started at Florida Atlantic University. Our resources are through funding. We get grants to get these programs going and of course from corporate donations. We rely on the public to keep the organization going.

Casey: We have a scholarship that sends deserving college students to school. We work really well with arts and education administrators. They help us vet the school and figure out what resources the community needs. We are always looking for volunteers. For our Summer Strings program, they are instructed from 9 a.m to -3 p.m. They say it is equivalent to one year of instruction if they were in school in that two-week intensive period. Not only are they given the opportunity to experience and learn the joy of music but they are doing it in Lynn University, a conservatory in a college setting. These are kids who are compromised financially in different ways they are not given these great opportunities and this is a wonderful way for them to feel good about themselves, develop and understand the power of music, and learn. It does so much to their overall well-being and we hear that from the parents and that is our greatest satisfaction. After they come out of the program they are like, “Oh my gosh, my child has learned so much, grown so much!” It’s amazing.


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Constance Cherise is a classic film aficionado and also freelances for TCM.com. Reach her at constance.cherise@gmail.com. Review her portfolio here.

About this Author

Constance Cherise

Constance Cherise is a freelance writer and contributor for Turner Classic MoviesSee her work here.