“None of us would be here without Nat King Cole,” the singer Darius De Haas said near the end of the first half of “Unforgettable: A Tribute to Nat King Cole.” He was “the standard-bearer,” Mr. De Haas continued, a luminous presence “who came to us at just the right time.”  

Mr. De Haas, who has enjoyed a long career on Broadway and in nightclubs but is currently best known as the singing voice of “Shy Baldwin” on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” was correct on many levels.  

Nat King Cole (1919-65) completely altered the course of jazz as well as popular music, both as a pianist and a singer, and gave us dozens of the most beloved standard songs out there. Somewhere along the way, he also brilliantly blazed a trail for African Americans — right into the mainstream of American and world culture from the segregated margins of society. 

After speaking, Mr. De Haas launched into a dreamy, almost hypnotic and highly spiritual reading of one of Cole’s most treasured signature songs, “Nature Boy.” This performance was one of many highlights of the second of three nights of the 33rd Annual Mabel Mercer Foundation cabaret showcase; the third, titled “Through The Years: Celebrating Timeless American Standards,” is October 28 at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Producer and hostess Natalie Douglas is to be commended for her decision to use the same instrumental backing that Cole himself employed for the first half of his career, piano (Jon Weber), bass (Jonathan Michél), and guitar (Ed Cherry). 

Throughout the evening, Mr. Weber made a point of replicating the original King Cole Trio arrangements and occasionally solos — it sounds like an obvious enough idea, but few Cole tribute shows actually go to the trouble. Mr. Weber nailed the block chord intro at the start of “Orange Colored Sky,” as sung by Aaron Lee Battle, and the threesome also reprised the trio harmony vocal and solos on the “I Got Rhythm” variation, “Hit That Jive, Jack.”

The expected hits were there, like a rubato, almost surreal “Mona Lisa,” by veteran entertainer Clint Holmes, and “Smile” by the 15-year-old Elias Javier. I can listen to “The Christmas Song” even in October, especially when it’s sung by Scott Coulter. 

Amanda King followed with a suitably spooky, Halloween-appropriate arrangement of “No Moon at All,” complete with “mysterioso” vamps.   Ken Page, whom most of us know as the voice of “Oogie-Boogie” from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” — which as we all know is actually a great Halloween story — gave us Cole’s classic mystery movie theme, “Angel Eyes.”

Apart from the milestone classics, King Cole buffs in the crowd were delighted by the inclusion of seldom-heard gems and rarities, including: “Don’t Go,” from the 1961 Cole-George Shearing collaboration, by the teenaged Julia Parasram, who sounded even better than she did at an MMF event last fall; and “Beautiful Moons Ago,” a Cole original from early in the Trio’s history delivered with expected authority by the formidable Gabrielle Stravelli.

There were other surprises: Nicolas King, best known for his uptempo, hard-swinging tunes, crooned a lovely, torchy rendition of “Where Can I Go About You,” and Billy Stritch treated us to another torch-er, “Somewhere Along The Way.” Later, in the second half, Mr. Stritch returned to join Clint Holmes in one of Cole’s most memorable novelties, the hit duet with Johnny Mercer on a vintage 1947 own to veganism, “Save The Bones For Henry Jones.”

Various artists also made a point to honor Cole’s international side, like T. Oliver Reid, who “chantez-ed” “Straighten Up and Fly Right” partially in French. Valarie Pettiford shimmied across the stage as a bilingual seductress in a mashup of two of Cole’s Spanish-language songs, “Bésame Mucho” and “Quizas, Quizas, Quizas.”  

Host Natalie Douglas outdid them all with a remarkable treatment of “L-O-V-E.” Cole’s final hit was originally a German song that he recorded in seven different languages; then, in 1969, an engineer edited them together into a special “multi-lingual composite.” Ms. Douglas memorized that edit and is likely the first artist ever to perform it live, something that even Cole himself (who also sang in Korean and Tagalog, in Manila) never attempted.

It’s always amazing when there are surprises to be found in the canon of a man who died — at only 45 — nearly 60 years ago. In introducing “Nature Boy,” Mr. De Haas talked about its message of peace and international brotherhood, saying, “We need it now more than ever.” Would that we didn’t.