Hard on the heels of the excellent Hittin’ The Ramp 1936-43 set on Resonance comes this exemplary package collating all Nat Cole’s sessions with Nelson Riddle (and a final session with Ralph Carmichael at which Cole remade some of the early Riddle arrangements in stereo). It charts their progress during a decade in the public eye, starting with the very first collaboration at which (for Les Baxter’s orchestra) they produced ‘Mona Lisa’, which spent five weeks as the number one single on the 1950 Billboard charts. Just as with Riddle’s work for Ella Fitzgerald, the accompanying orchestras range from sweeping symphonic strings to a hard-hitting big band. Cole the pianist by this time had taken second place to Cole the popular vocalist, so with the exception of the fourth CD, which is built round the Piano Style of Nat King Cole album, there’s little of Cole’s exemplary jazz playing on show. Even when he does sit at the piano, it’s only on a feature such as ‘Tea For Two’ where his two-handed harmonic invention is on show, and even there once he heads into the swing section he tends to play single note lines, rather than the more virtuosic playing of the earlier trios.

So, for fans of Cole the vocalist this set is an essential document that would probably rate a full five stars. For those who value his credentials as a jazz musician, there’s a little less on offer, although most of the original albums had at least one track where the string section went off for a cup of tea, leaving Cole with big band accompaniment. His vocals all have that gorgeous raspy yet talcum-powder smooth timbre, and as the recording quality gradually improved during the decade we hear him sounding better and better. Students of arranging will be fascinated by Riddle’s choice of instrumentation, and the way he uses trombones and French horns at the expense of trumpets and sometimes reeds is a study in itself. Brief solo cameos from a who’s who of West Coast studio bands are also rewarding, so overall this makes a fine complement to the Resonance set as a rounded portrait of a very significant decade in Cole’s career. Now all we need is for the 20-year-old 18-CD Mosaic box of the great Capitol trio recordings from 1942-1961 (only one track of which is duplicated here), to be given a similarly updated reissue treatment.