My Mood Is You Freddy Cole

• 1 My Mood Is You 05:46
• 2 Temptation 04:53
• 3 Almost in Love 05:37
• 4 I’ll Always Leave the Door a Little Open 05:44
• 5 First Began 06:19
• 6 They Didn’t Believe Me 04:33
• 7 My Heart Tells Me 06:30
• 8 The Lonely One 05:11
• 9 Love Like This Can’t Last 04:16
• 10 Marie 03:19
• Total Runtime 52:08

Info for My Mood Is You

Time has been kind to Freddy Cole, who on 'My Mood is You' is singing with the vitality and zest of a man half his age. His seasoned voice is as affecting as ever, his understanding of a song's expressive anatomy never more incisive. His unimpeachable artistry, rather than longevity, is what positions him as today's vocal jazz master.

Very few artists stay at the top of their game for their entire career. However, Freddy Cole's velvet unhurried singing style remains every bit as cool and hip as it was when his first record was released in 1964.

Pianist John di Martino, bassist Elias Bailey, guitarist Randy Napoleon and drummer Quentin Baxter, are trusted associates of Cole who respond to his inimitable sense of swing with now intuitive assurance. Guest saxophonist Joel Frahm displays a sympathetic style that puts him in league with such earlier illustrious Cole saxophone allies as Houston Person and David "Fathead" Newman.

Freddy Cole, vocals
John di Martino, piano
Joel Frahm, soprano & tenor saxophones
Randy Napoleon, guitar
Elias Bailey, bass
Quentin Baxter, drums

“Gorgeous autumnal baritone, expressive phrasing and pitch-perfect feel for jazz standards, pop tunes and love ballads.” (People Magazine)

“Freddy has an impeccable sense of swing… he is, overall, the most maturely expressive male jazz singer of his generation, if not the best alive.” (The New York Times)

Lionel Frederick Cole
was born the youngest of Edward and Paulina Nancy Cole’s five children. His three elder brothers, Eddie, Ike and Nat (twelve years Freddy’s senior) were all musicians taught by their mother. Though Freddy was born in Chicago, he is now a 35-year native son and international celebrity of Atlanta.

“I started playing piano at five or six,” Freddy recalls. “Music was all around me.” In the Chicago home of his youth, visitors included Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Lionel Hampton. He also credits Billy Eckstine as a major influence. “He was a fantastic entertainer,” Freddy recalls. “I learned so much from just watching and being around him.” After a possible career with the NFL was shelved due to a severe football related hand injury, he began playing and singing in Chicago clubs as a teenager. Although he was ready to hit the road at 18, his mother intervened and he continued his musical education at the Roosevelt Institute in Chicago.

Freddy moved to New York in 1951, where he studied at the Juilliard School of Music and found himself profoundly influenced by John Lewis, Oscar Peterson and Teddy Wilson. He got a Master’s degree at the New England Conservatory of Music and then spent several months on the road as a member of Earl Bostic’s band that also included Johnny Coles and Benny Golson.

It was back in New York that Freddy successfully laid the groundwork for a career that continues to flourish to this day. He developed a vast repertoire of songs in Manhattan bistros and concurrently began to supplement his live performances with television and radio commercial work.

Freddy recorded several albums for European and English companies during the 1970s that helped him develop a loyal overseas following. Cole believes that becoming an international favorite made him “widen my scope a little bit.” He developed a stand-up act, a better rapport with audiences, and learned to sing in other languages. “It made me much more a performer.”

A resident of Atlanta since 1972, he currently leads a quartet on piano and vocals with guitarist Randy Napoleon, bassist Elias Bailey, and drummer Quentin Baxter, that regularly tours the US, Europe, the Far East, South America and South Africa. Freddy has been a recording artist since 1952, when his first single, “The Joke’s on Me,” was released on an obscure Chicago-based label.

While there are certain unmistakable similarities in timbre to his brother Nat, his voice is raspier, smokier, jazzier even. In truth, his phrasing is far closer to that of Frank Sinatra or Billie Holiday than that of his brother, and his timing swings even more. His vocals – suave, elegant, formidable, sometimes spoken and articulate – make him the most respected lyrical storyteller in jazz. Cole’s career continues to ascend as he has moved into the front ranks of America’s homegrown art form with a style and musical sophistication all his own.

Freddy Cole is one of American popular music’s great performers. Like pop icon Tony Bennett, Cole is a beloved musician’s musician and a living link to the Great American Songbook. While evoking the suave stylings of Earl “Fatha” Hines and Teddy Wilson, Cole is very much his own man, whose toe-tapping forays recall the bluesy minimalism of Count Basie, the urbane sophistication of George Shearing and the uptown swagger of Duke Ellington. – Chuck Berg, The Topeka Capital-Journal

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