“Sweet Georgia Brown” (1945) – The King Cole Trio * Written by Ben Bernie, Kenneth Casey, and Maceo Pinkard * 78: “Sweet Georgia Brown” / “It Is Better to Be By Yourself” * Label: Capitol
With this record, Nat King Cole (piano), Oscar Moore (guitar), and Johnny Miller (bass) run a California clinic on how to make a small jazz combo cook. All three of them rip through this instrumental version of a standard (that was only twenty years old at this point), sounding like they could twirl their instruments on a fingertip if they wanted. In Moore’s guitar playing, you hear a clear prototype of the glimmering West Coast sound Barney Kessel would later pursue in the fifties with his own combos.