Maggie Discusses Natalie Cole's Unforgettable..With Love, 30th Anniversary With Pianist/Arranger Alan Broadbent

Maggie and extraordinary pianist and arranger,  Alan Broadbent discuss the 30th Anniversary of Unforgettable… with Love, the legendary singer and songwriter Natalie Cole’s biggest album to date. Since its initial release in 1991, it has sold over seven million copies and also won Cole seven GRAMMY© Awards. The album features Cole singing several songs her father Nat King Cole recorded, nearly 20 years after she initially refused to cover her father’s songs during live concerts. Cole produced vocal arrangements for the songs, with piano accompaniment by her uncle Ike Cole and many other first rate pianists and arrangers. The album’s title track, an interactive duet with her father, would go on to be one of her most memorable recordings.

Alan Broadbent was born in Auckland, New Zealand and in 1966, at the age of 19, received a Downbeat Magazine scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston. In 1969 he was asked to join Woody Herman’s band as his pianist and arranger for 3 years. In 1972 he settled in Los Angeles, beginning a musical relationship with the legendary singer Irene Kral (no relation to Diana Krall). Soon he was also invited into the studio scene as a pianist for the great Nelson Riddle, David Rose and Johnny Mandel. In the early 90s he was asked to be a part of Natalie Cole’s famous “Unforgettable” cd, at which time he toured as her pianist and, a little while later, as her conductor. At this time he wrote an orchestral arrangement for her second video with her dad, “When I Fall In Love”, which won him his first Grammy Award for “best orchestral arrangement accompanying a vocal”.

Turning Points
Shortly after, he became a member of Charlie Haden’s Quartet West, touring the festivals of Europe, UK and the USA. It was while with this group that he won his second Grammy, an orchestral accompaniment written for Shirley Horn of Leonard Bernstein’s “Lonely Town”.

As a soloist and with his jazz trio, Broadbent has been nominated for Grammys twice for best instrumental performance, in the company of such artists as Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins and Keith Jarrett. In 2007 he was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit, an honor he holds in high regard.

The Now
Broadbent is Diana Krall’s conductor for her occasional orchestra concerts and is the conductor on her “Live in Paris” DVD. Recently he has been the arranger on Glenn Frey’s cd with strings, “After Hours”, and wrote six string arrangements for Sir Paul McCartney’s “Kisses On The Bottom” with the London Symphony. He has just returned from solo piano concerts in the UK, Poland and France.

It has been his lifelong goal, through his orchestral arrangements and jazz improvisations, to discover, in popular music and standard songs, deeper feelings of communication and love.

Source: https://craftrecordings.com/products/natalie-cole-unforgettable-with-love-30th-anniversary-edition-cd

Source: https://www.alanbroadbent.com

This episode is from an archive from the KPFK program Profiles adapted for podcast. 

Host Maggie LePique, a radio veteran since the 1980's at NPR in Kansas City Mo. She began her radio career in Los Angeles in the early 1990's and has worked for Pacifica station KPFK Radio in Los Angeles since 1994.