Where Did Everyone Go?

This is the third and final collection to feature the team of Nat King Cole and Gordon Jenkins (arranger). Their earlier collaborations yielded the uniformly superior chart-topper Love Is the Thing (1957) and follow-up The Very Thought of You (1958). As the moniker suggests, there is a perceptible poignancy and longing weaved throughout Jenkins' arrangements. The opener "Where Did Everyone Go?" possesses a solitude accentuated by responsive instrumentation that supports, yet never intrudes. Cole's practically conversational delivery of pop standards — such as Irving Berlin's "Say It Isn't So" or Johnny Mercer's "When the World Was Young" — become musical soliloquies with the score as a sonic subtext. His rich and cozy baritone carries the ache of "Am I Blue?" and the slinky "I Keep Goin' Back to Joe's" into an understated, almost plaintive blues. Here he perfectly demonstrates a boundless capacity as a melodic interpreter of song. "No, I Don't Want Her" finds Cole's voice gilded with an intimacy that virtually takes the listener into the singer's confidence. As he had done on his previous outings with Cole, Jenkins supplies one selection. Suitably "That's All There Is, There Isn't Any More" is the last track on the album and certainly provides a lovely contrast to Judy Garland's arguably more familiar reading.