Try Not To Cry

This entry in the Songbook series of Nat "King" Cole compilations, according to Billy Vera's liner notes, is devoted to tracks "from the Cole canon of lost love songs about the ones who lied and who left." In spite of that, it's not a universally downbeat collection, mixing orchestrated ballads (admittedly the dominant musical mode here) with lively jumping tunes and compositions by the likes of Irving Berlin and Hoagy Carmichael, including standards such as "Once in a While" and "Stardust." It's thus not quite as lugubrious as you might anticipate, and a decent group, for what it is, of material highlighting the more pensive and forlorn facets of Cole's repertoire. It has to be questioned as to whether picking up thematic volumes such as this is the best way to build a Cole library, though. No original recording dates or release information are included.