Oscar Moore (1916-81) will always be best remembered for being the guitarist with the Nat King Cole Trio during 1937-47. His tasteful and fluent guitar is heard on virtually every recording that Cole made with his group during this period including his early hits and many instrumentals. An early electric guitarist, Moore was inspired by Charlie Christian but always had his own sound and thoughtful approach whether playing solos that sounded relaxed at every tempo, interacting with Cole’s piano, or accompanying vocals.
The three-CD set from the Fresh Sound label called The Enchanting Guitar Of Oscar Moore is subtitled the 1945-1965 Years. While Moore is heard on three instrumentals with the King Cole Trio taken from radio transcriptions and, as part of the group, accompanies Anita O’Day on two vocals from 1945 (“Penthouse Serenade” and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love”) he is mostly heard in a variety of other settings.
His brother, guitarist Johnny Moore, led the Three Blazers during 1944-57. The group had the same guitar-piano-bass instrumentation as the King Cole Trio, recorded dozens of selections, and had some success particularly when Charles Brown was its singer-pianist during 1945-47. While still a member of Cole’s group, Oscar Moore recorded with his brother’s band on a few occasions including six selections (two with singer Frankie Laine) from 1945 that are included on this reissue. He became a regular member of the Three Blazers (which was now a two-guitar quartet) when he left Cole in late 1947.
In retrospect it would have been better for Oscar Moore to go out on his own at that point because Charles Brown soon departed from the group and the popularity of the Three Blazers, despite the fine interplay between the two guitarists, was gradually dropping in popularity. Thirteen selections from this period (which lasted on and off into 1952) show that the music of the Three Blazers (a lot of riff-based swing pieces along with ballads and blues) was generally quite rewarding if not all that original.
The first disc in the reissue also has Oscar Moore playing “Speedliner” on a session with Illinois Jacquet and backing a variety of singers including the young Ray Charles on “Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand.” The final two CDs contain all of the music from the sessions that Moore led during the remainder of his career (1952-65). He is in excellent form heading a trio with pianist Ernie Freeman and bassist George Bledsoe, and in a trio/quartet with pianist Carl Perkins, bassist Joe Comfort and sometimes Lee Young or George Jenkins on drums and Mike Pacheco on bongos.
However despite the quality of the music and Moore’s excellent playing in his unchanged swing style, the music was only available as radio transcriptions and on the tiny and short-lived Skylark and Tampa labels; four songs appeared as part of a Various Artists release by Verve. A bit unusual was a project made for Omegatape in late 1956 that had Moore (via overdubbing) playing both solo and rhythm guitar while joined by bassist Leroy Vinnegar. That music was only available on reel-to-reel tapes for decades.
None of these recordings did much to advance Oscar Moore’s career. Instead of building on his fame as Nat Cole’s guitarist, Moore gradually faded from the scene, leaving music altogether in 1957 when he began working fulltime as a bricklayer. In 1965 after Nat King Cole’s death, he was persuaded to come out of retirement and make one final album, a trio album with pianist Gerald Wiggins and bassist Joe Comfort that consisted of some songs that had been recorded by his late boss. Still just 48, Oscar Moore sounds fine playing a set of mostly familiar numbers including “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” “The Christmas Song,” and “Sweet Lorraine.” Although he lived another 16 years and reportedly worked a little with Helen Humes in the 1970s, Oscar Moore never recorded again.
This three-CD set, which has a 28-page booklet with definitive liner notes by Fresh Sound’s owner and producer Jordi Pujol, pays tribute to a fine guitarist who deserves to be known beyond his connection with Nat King Cole.
The Enchanting Guitar Of Oscar Moore
Fresh Sound FSR-CD 1159
www.freshsoundrecords.com
Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings.
Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.
