Freddy Cole, the performer who emerged from Nat’s shadow, dies

Freddy Cole, a pianist and vocalist who spent much of his musical life in the shadow of his brother Nat King Cole, but whose durable talents carried him through a triumphant late-career resurgence, died Saturday in Atlanta. He was 88.

The cause was complications of a cardiovascular condition, his manager, Suzi Reynolds, said.

Cole leaned toward a more explicitly bluesy style than his brother, who started out playing lively jump blues in the 1930s before mellowing out his sound and becoming one of the most popular crooners of the 20th century. Freddy Cole sang in a plain-spoken manner, always eye-to-eye with his audience, in a way that Nat — whose voice was floating, mythic, serene — never did. The title of Freddy Cole’s debut album, “Waiter, Ask the Man to Play the Blues” (1964), reflected the smoky barroom aura of his music.

Yet there was no mistaking the affinity between their vocal styles: warm and welcoming, every syllable enunciated with loving care and an inner glow. For Freddy, that resemblance proved a blessing and a curse.

As he aged, he embraced it — even as his voice accrued a slightly weather-beaten quality that Nat, felled at 45 by lung cancer, never had the chance to develop. In Freddy’s case, the markings of age only added to his elegance and expressiveness. In a 1999 profile for The New York Times, critic David Hajdu called him “one of the few male jazz singers these days who is still, at 67, at the height of his powers.”

Cole was nearing his 60th birthday by the time he finally stepped forward and firmly declared his musical independence. And when he did, it was with a wink.

In 1991, Sunnyside Records released “I’m Not My Brother, I’m Me,” Cole’s first album to get widespread attention.