Freddy Cole is the jazz vocalist/pianist younger brother of music legend Nat King Cole.

At 75, he's honed his craft longer, logged more miles on the road and likely has sung more songs Nat King Cole made famous than Nat himself. The New York Times last year name-checked Freddy Cole as "the most maturely expressive male jazz singer of his generation, if not the best alive."

But when music writers call, there are always questions about his more famous brother. Questions Freddy Cole always expects and answers graciously and honestly, if not exactly reverentially.

"He was just him ... just my brother," said Cole. "I just took (his stardom) in stride. My father used to say every tub has its own bottom. You sit on yours. Nat sits on his."

The story was the same for his also musically inclined older brothers, vocalist/pianist Ike and bassist Eddie.

"That's the way we lived. There was no envy and no jealousy going on in my family."

Cole was phoning from his Atlanta home on a rare break from the road. He'd returned the evening before from a four-week trip to Europe, where he had played festivals and dates on the same bills as Diana Krall and Ahmad Jamal.

He headlines tributes to Nat at this weekend's Hawaii International Jazz Festival.

Freddy Cole was just a pre-teen when Nat — 13 years his senior — began to make a name for himself in popular music.

"I might come home from school and Count Basie is sitting there at the house, or Duke Ellington or Sonny Grey," said Cole. "You name it. If they were in Chicago, they'd stop by the house, and my mother might cook a meal for them or something."

Cole gravitated to music not because of his brothers but when a high school football injury sidelined his hopes for a pro career. Schooled in piano since age 5, Cole worked Chicago clubs as a teenager and toured briefly with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra.

Next came studies at the Juilliard School of Music, a master's degree from the New England Conservatory of Music and, ever since, a lifetime interpreting songs.

Cole's voice on CD comes across more smokily raspy, bluesy and open to jazz-style phrasing and improvisation than his brother's renowned, elegant croon. He has never tried to duplicate Nat's voice, nor worried about whether his voice sounded too much like his brother's.

"I have no control over that," said Cole, feistily. "That's for people like you and other critics and writers to concern yourselves with. ... My main concern has always been to sound good, whoever it sounded like."

Nat never sat his brother down to impart any music or career advice, nor did the younger Cole seek it. ("I had to learn what I had to learn like everybody else ... Like he had to learn."). Cole also said he's never had any musical idols.

"I never lived that way. I didn't need idols," explained Cole. "I knew people. I knew great musicians and was fortunate enough to be around many, many great musicians.

"I didn't look to anyone for knowledge. You have to gain that yourself."

Freddy Cole's impeccable sense of timing and swing?

"That all came from working at it. You just don't jump up and get it," he said, chuckling.

Does he feel he has "it" after more than half century performing jazz?

"Playing music, you don't never have it! That's what jazz is all about," said Cole. "Jazz isn't a recurring thing. It's free. Your mind is free.

"You ever get satisfied, then it's time you quit."

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.