Lionel Frederick Cole was born on October 15, 1931, the youngest of Edward and Paulina Nancy Cole’s five children. His three elder brothers, Eddie, Ike and Nat (twelve years Freddy’s senior) were all musicians. Freddy started playing piano at age five and remembers that music was all around him during his youth. In the Cole’s Chicago home, visitors often included the likes of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Fletcher Henderson and many other world-renowned artists.
After a possible career with the NFL was shelved due to a hand injury, Cole began playing and singing in Chicago clubs as a teenager. Although he was ready to hit the road at 18, his mother intervened and he continued his musical education at the Roosevelt Institute in Chicago.
Cole moved to New York in 1951, where he studied at the Juilliard School of Music and found himself profoundly influenced by John Lewis, Oscar Peterson and Teddy Wilson. Cole recieved a master’s degree at the New England Conservatory of Music and then spent several months on the road as a member of an Earl Bostic band that also included Johnny Coles and Benny Golson.
It was in New York City that Cole successfully laid the groundwork for a career that continues to flourish to this day. He developed a vast repertoire of songs in Manhattan bistros and concurrently began to supplement his live performances with television and radio commercial jingle work.
Freddy Cole has been a recording artist since 1952, when his first single "The Joke’s on Me" was released on an obscure Chicago-based label. During the 1970’s, Cole recorded several albums for European and English companies that helped him develop a loyal overseas following. A resident of Atlanta, Georgia since 1972, he currently leads a quartet that regularly tours the United States, Europe, the Far East and South America.
Freddy Cole’s vocals-suave, elegant, formidable and articulate - are now among the most respected in jazz. Cole’s career continues to ascend as he has moved into the front ranks of America’s most precious art form with a style and musical sophistication uniquely his own.
