I’m sitting here listening the King Cole Trio and that baby smooth voice of Nat King Cole and I’m seething. You know why? Nat King Cole was a jazz singer. Forget the pop tunes he sang later. Those were great too, even if they did make everyone forget what an incredible pianist Cole was. Fact is, that voice…impeccable. His phrasing, the way he caressed a tune. If someone told me I had to choose between Nat Cole and Frank Sinatra, well, shoot me now, but I’d have to pick the King. I know, I know. You think I’m being ridiculous and that I must be drunk, but it’s true. I mean, I’d hate to have to make that choice, but if my life depended on it and they told me I could take every side Cole made or every recording of Sinatra’s…well…you see, now I am thinking of those Sinatra days with Dorsey and I am beginning to backtrack. Okay, forget it. I would just tell them they would have to kill me because I wouldn’t be able to decide. Anyway, my point is, Nat King Cole was a jazz singer. Frank Sinatra was a jazz singer. Yeah, they both went the pop route later on, but man, they don’t make them like that anymore.

You can sing a song and you can give your interpretation of a song. You can make it your own. That is what the best of the jazz singers did. Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan could all sing Body and Soul and after they were done, you would be unable to say that one sounded like the other. They made tunes their own and that is why the classic jazz singers were some of the best singers ever.

Rod Stewart, Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight — all great singers in their own right. But, in my opinion, they are not jazz singers. They may do a reading of a jazz tune, but I do not believe they will interpret it and make it their own. Now, I have only heard a few of the Stewart and Robinson songs and have yet to hear Ms. Knight’s. I could be completely wrong about her. But Stewart doesn’t move me. Smokey doesn’t move me. “Tonight’s The Night” moved me. “Tears of a Clown” moved me. Why do these guys feel it necessary to open up the great American songbook and give mediocre readings of classic tunes? Smokey Robinson is a titan when it comes to classic popular music, but he is not a jazz singer. Am I wrong?

Give me Nat Cole. Give me Sinatra. Tony Bennett. Billy Eckstine. Carmen McRae. Dinah Washington. Joe Williams. Give me true jazz singers and you other guys, please, don’t open the book unless you can truly make the songs your own and aren’t just out there doing the popular thing. Crooning is an art, not a side project.