Pittsburgh Symphony Pops celebrates 'Unforgettable' legacy

The word superstar hadn’t been coined when Nat King Cole was one. At his peak, after World War II through the 1950s, the jazz pianist and smoothly poised singer sold so many recordings that the famous Capitol Records’ round headquarters building in Hollywood was called “The House that Nat Built.” And that was at a time when Frank Sinatra in his prime was recording for Capitol, too.

His daughter Natalie had just turned 15 when Cole died at 45 in 1965. By her mid-20s she was so formidable a singer that she beat out Aretha Franklin for best female R&B Vocal Performance in 1976 with “This Will Be.” In 1991 she recorded her father’s signature “Unforgettable” as a duet with his recorded voice. It was a hit too, of course.

Byron Stripling will conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony Pops with vocalists Dee Daniels and Denzal Sinclair in three performances of “Nat King Cole” Unforgettable” June 21-23 at Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall.

Both Pops soloists are jazz singers who have a long association with the Cole family musical legacy, and will perform duets as well as solo numbers.

Sinclaire was just starting out when he played Nat King Cole in a musical called “Unforgettable.”

“In a way it was the last thing I wanted to do because I was already getting comparisons to him,” he says. Like Cole, Sinclaire is a pianist as well as singer. “I took upon myself as a personal challenge to pay homage to one of my heroes but also be myself. I was successful on both counts.”

Daniels met Natalie Cole only once, at Lincoln Center in New York City at the Dazzle Awards.

“I grew up with her music,” Daniels says. “When I first heard her on the radio, I thought it was Aretha Franklin because nobody else was singing like that — up high and really belting it out with full harmonies.”

Daniels and Sinclaire met in Vancouver, Canada, when both were living there, though Sinclair is now based in Toronto. They’ve teamed up in concert before with both big bands and orchestra. This program was created by conductor and arranger Jeff Tyzik.

Sinclaire doesn’t like to preview the repertoire he’ll perform. And when he says to “expects classics” that doesn’t narrow it down very much for a prolific hit maker like Nat King Cole.

But he says he will sing “To the Ends of the Earth” “because it reminds me on a couple of levels of the original “Star Trek” series. The music is in the same kind of groove and (the title) is a reference to going where no man has gone before.”

Daniels’ repertoire of Natalie’s repertoire will include “The Very Thought of You.”

“Every time I sing that song I think about my husband,” she says. “We’ve been married 33 years and I still think about him the way I did when we first met. It’s a song for all those in love or who’ve been in love.”