Photograph by Clay Walker
Freddy Cole at the Blue Note Jazz Club.
After nearly eight decades (that’s right—eight) in the music business, Freddy Cole boasts multiple albums, and a career that’s taken him all over the world. It’s also given him the opportunity to refine his craft over and over again. But Cole says that slowing down is the last thing on his mind.
“I just talked to a friend from Chicago a little while about that retiring stuff,” says the 84- year-old. “You just retire and wait to die, cause you’re not doing anything. I might as well be trying to play music and make somebody happy, including myself.”
Unlike his brother and niece, father and daughter Nat “King” Cole and Natalie Cole, his career hasn’t been measured on hits and star power; it’s been one that has been created from skill, endurance, and education. The youngest of five, his siblings all had careers in music at one point or another in their lives. He has a Masters degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, and has been recording professionally for over six decades. As he and his quintet prepares to take the stage for a four-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro starting Wednesday (“That’s one of my favorite places to play. I just get along well with the audience and I like St. Louis—or they like me. I have a few friends there, and it’s a wonderful town. And the club is second to none, and I‘ve been playing it for quite awhile and I enjoy it,” he says of the venue), we talked with Cole about respect, seeing the world, and what keeps him going after all these years.
Did you think you would have been playing music this long?
I never thought about it. I’ve been lucky, I’ve been blessed, and that’s all I can say. It’s the only job I’ve ever had, playing music. So it’s been a wonderful merry-go-round for me. I started playing music when I was very, very young—6, 7 years old, somewhere in there. And I’ve been fortunate enough for it to have brought me all the way around the world—and to St. Louis! So that’s the reason I say I’m lucky and I’m been blessed.
What does professionalism mean to you?
The most important thing I’ve found in my years is to try to be as professional as possible and treat the music right, ‘cause if you treat the music right, it’ll treat you right. You get on the bandstand, and that’s what it’s all about. You forget about everything else, all your problems you have, all the things that are going wrong...you get on the bandstand, that’s it.
What is a Freddy Cole show like?
From Broadway to the Blues. The guys in the band, they always laugh, because they don’t know what I’m going to play, and I sure as hell don’t know what I’m going to play. We do most of our rehearsing at sound check.
For a first-time listener, which of your albums would you recommend they start with?
That’s tough, I don’t know. I’ve done some good ones. The CD that I did honoring my man Mr. —Freddy Cole Sings Mr. B—that has to go down as one of my best. And this recent one, He Was The King. And another one, Rio de Janeiro Blue…there’s several of them, but those three I would pick.
Who was Mr. B?
Billy Eckstine, one of the greatest singers that ever lived. He had known me since I was a little boy. He and my brother Nat were very tight. I got a chance to spend time with B, and I learned a few things from watching him.
What do you see in this next chapter of your life?
Well, I would hope to live and breathe and continue to do what I’m doing. Hopefully things will come out all right. That’s the only thing I can hope for.
I just don’t regret anything. There are some things that I could have done better, I think, but who’s to talk about it now? Here and now is all we possess.
Jazz at the Bistro is located at 3536 Washington. The Freddy Cole Quintet Featuring Harry Allen performs Wednesday, May 25 through Saturday, May 28. Tickets start at $35; for more information, call 314-571-6000 or visit jazzstl.org.
