Chorus of Approval

Everyone knows singer-pianist Freddy Cole’s brother, the late entertainer Nat “King” Cole. They may even know his brother Eddie, who was a member of Nat’s early bands in the 1930s. But how many know Isaac, another of Cole’s older brothers, the one who discovered Santa’s presents a few days ahead of Christmas back in the family’s Waukegan, Ill., home?

“Isaac and I were chuckling over this not too long ago,” said Freddy, the youngest Cole, the amusement audible in his warm baritone in a phone interview from Tokyo, where he was performing a series of concerts.

“I was maybe 4 or 5 at the time. My father came in and caught us playing with the toys and he said, ‘I’m going to have Santa take them back.’ And my brother said, ‘He won’t do that.’ ”

“Now, at that age, I dearly wanted to believe in Santa, no matter what my brother told me,” Cole continued. “So when we ran out on Christmas morning and saw nothing under the tree, I thought I was going to die.”

Cole, who appears Friday and Saturday nights in the Jazz Club at the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Founders Hall, said the presents and his faith in Santa were eventually restored. His holiday tale casts a bit of light on a musical family with one of the most famous names in pop and jazz.

Born in 1931, 12 years after his brother Nat, Freddy Cole was the youngest of five children. His sister, Evelyn, died in 1995. His father was a Baptist minister and his mother played piano and directed the church choir. Although the youngest Cole was enlisted for the choir and began piano lessons at age 5, he said, the church didn’t play that big of a role in his musical development.

“The church has been a big influence on a lot of entertainers,” he explained. “But I never really got into playing gospel music. I loved it, but I didn’t play it.”

The bigger influences were his older brothers, all musicians. (Isaac Cole now lives in Arizona, where he makes regular appearances at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix). Musical guests, including Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton, frequently dropped by the house with brother Nat. The musician who had the biggest effect on young Freddy, more so, he said, than Nat, was dapper singer Billy Eckstine.

“I loved ‘B,’ ” Cole said. “I really can’t remember the first time I met him, but musically, he was a great influence on me. I liked his demeanor. I liked his approach to music.”

Cole didn’t rely on the family name to propel his own career. He studied at New York’s Juilliard School of Music in the early ‘50s and earned a master’s degree at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music. He spent time on the road with the band of saxophonist Earl Bostic, an organization that over the years had employed such well-known names as saxophonists John Coltrane, Benny Golson and Stanley Turrentine; drummer Earl Palmer; and pianist Bill Doggett.

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Cole’s first single, “The Joke’s on Me,” was released in 1952. He followed it in 1953 with “Whispering Grass” on Columbia’s Okeh label.

After Nat died in 1965, Cole took it especially hard. “It’s a natural thing to be lost in the shadow of a more famous relative,” he said. “Look at the Crosby family. Many of them were very talented but they were hardly visible in comparison to Bing.”

In fact, Freddy has found that being the brother of the famous Nat “King” Cole has been a detriment as far as gaining critical notice. “It’s just the nature of how people think about you,” he said. “They don’t approach you as yourself but as someone’s brother, never stopping to think that you have a name of your own.”

In the ‘70s, Cole was mostly ignored in the United States, something he attributes to the dominance of rock ‘n’ roll. But he found acceptance playing Europe, especially Britain. He started his own record company, First Shot, but soon discovered the limitations of making and selling one’s own recordings.

“I did pretty well with the label,” he said, “but with all the work required, it was like being thrown into a pit of quicksand. You really can’t battle the major (record companies). I did OK with mom and pop stores but couldn’t get my records out all over the country because of finances.”

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After his 1990 Sunnyside recording, “I’m Not My Brother, I’m Me,” Cole began to gain notice in his own right. Sure, there was a certain family resemblance to Nat in tonal quality. But his phrasing and ease at the keyboard were all his own.

Several recordings for the LaserLight and Fantasy labels followed. His latest recording, “Merry Go Round,” was released earlier this year on the TelArc label. Cole also appears on TelArc’s recent tribute, “A Love Affair: The Music Of Ivan Lins,” on which he performs with vocalists Dianne Reeves, Sting, Chaka Khan, Vanessa Williams and others.

“It felt really good to walk into the Tower Records here in Tokyo,” Cole related, “and the first thing I see is the Ivan Lins CD. I knew I’d arrived.”

Like his brother, Cole has a certain reputation for interpretations of Christmas favorites. His 1995 release, “I Want A Smile For Christmas,” coincided with his last visit to the Performing Arts Center.

“It gets close to the holiday, you start pulling a few of the favorites out of the hat,” he said. “But I’m glad the season’s only a couple weeks long. I get tired of those tunes real fast.” Except for one, he admitted, written by his son Lionel Cole (Freddy Cole’s full name is Lionel Frederick Cole), another link in the Cole musical lineage that includes niece Natalie and the others.

“Lionel’s song, ‘Old Days, Old Times, Old Friends,’ that’s my favorite Christmas song. It just brings so many good memories to mind.”

SHOW TIMES

Freddy Cole, with drummer Curtis Boyd, bassist Herman Burney and guitarist Gerry Byrd, plays the Jazz Club at Founders Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Friday and Saturday, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. 7:30 shows, $44; 9:30 shows, $38. (714) 556-2787.