Oneonta

Oneonta fan’s labor of love puts “Sinatra’s favorite saloon singer’ back in the spotlight

Oneonta resident Marie Hegeman was looking for a song appropriate for a Valentine’s Day 2014 Facebook posting to her husband, Tom, and remembered a song called “The Lady’s In Love With You” she knew would fit the bill. She tracked down the song and its performance on YouTube – a clip from a February 1964 episode of “The Judy Garland Show” – performed by Bobby Cole and his trio.

“I posted it and spent the rest of the day watching it,” she said. “I’d sneak off during work to watch it again. It’s amazing.”

As music fans do when suddenly obsessed with an artist new to them, she dug as deeply as possible to find more from Mr. Cole and his trio – but his catalog of recorded music was small. He nonetheless was a favorite among some of music’s greatest names – he was musical arranger for CBS-TV’s “The Judy Garland Show” and musical director on her last tour in 1967. And no less an authority on the subject than Frank Sinatra proclaimed Bobby Cole his “favorite saloon singer” during Mr. Cole’s residency at Jilly’s in New York City.

Ms. Hegeman left glowing comments on line about the video, vivid and sincere enough to attract the attention of the late Mr. Cole’s Florida-based daughter, Stephanie Edmonds. The two began exchanging e-mail messages and, as the friendship developed, so, too, did a handful of other ideas. They formed the Upper East Side Jazz Company in 2021 to preserve and promote Bobby Cole’s work and, in December, found a home for two dozen of his recordings.