Possessing a easy, sonorous croon – which earned him the moderately uncommon nickname “The Velvet Fog” – Mel Tormé was additionally an completed tunesmith who penned over 250 songs, together with the vacation evergreen, “The Christmas Song.” If that wasn’t sufficient, Tormé was additionally a gifted musician who may play drums and piano, starred in 22 motion pictures, and was a ubiquitous presence on TV between the Nineteen Fifties and Nineteen Nineties. He may additionally pilot a aircraft and, to prime all of it, was a profitable writer; in addition to penning a bestselling memoir known as It Wasn’t All Velvet in 1988, he wrote well-received biographies of his buddies, Hollywood star Judy Garland and virtuoso drummer Buddy Wealthy, and even printed a novel.
However regardless of his many accomplishments outdoors of the music enterprise, Mel Tormé is greatest remembered for his prodigious expertise as a singer and songwriter. Though he recorded for a raft of various labels throughout his lengthy skilled profession, this collection of greatest Mel Tormé tracks focuses on what was arguably his most satisfying interval as a recording artist; a productive spell at Verve Information between 1958 and 1962 which yielded eight studio LPs.
The Formative Years
Melvin Howard Tormé was born in Chicago in 1925 right into a household with Russian-Jewish ancestry. (The household’s authentic title was Torma, which a US immigration officer misspelled as Torme on his father’s entry to America: The title caught). Younger Mel was immersed in music from a younger age – his mom performed piano and his father sang, although not professionally – and based on his autobiography, he sang his first full track at simply ten months previous. By the age of 4, younger Mel, who had grow to be hooked on jazz by listening to the radio, was singing professionally each Monday night time at Chicago’s Blackhawk restaurant as a particular visitor of the Coon-Sanders Orchestra, an area Windy Metropolis ensemble.
Singing with the band for six months led to his love affair with the drums and by the age of eight, he was taking part in in his faculty’s drum and bugle corps. On the similar age, he efficiently auditioned as a baby radio actor and appeared in a large number of performs and broadcasts. (He additionally gained a scholarship to an performing faculty). When his voice broke at 13, his radio work started drying up however Mel started honing his drum abilities after his maternal grandfather purchased him a drum set. He additionally started writing songs on his mom’s piano. By the age of 16, Tormé had printed his first track, “Lament To Love,” which grew to become a success for bandleader Harry James in 1941. A yr later, he was taking part in drums and singing within the band of Hollywood comic Chico Marx – of Marx Brothers fame – and by 1944 was main his personal group, a pioneering jazz vocal concord quintet known as The Mel-Tones.
By 1946, Tormé had signed a recording contract with Capitol Information, topping the US pop charts with “Careless Hands,” which grew to become the muse for a stellar solo profession. It was at the moment he acquired his nickname, “The Velvet Fog,” which was coined by a New York DJ known as Fred Robbins who was famend for his catchphrases. In response to Tormé in his autobiography, Robbins launched him on his radio present as “the kid with the gauze in his jaws. Mr. Butterscotch. The Velvet Fog himself, Mel Torme!”
Stints recording LPs for numerous labels within the Nineteen Fifties, helped Tormé set up himself because the “Windy City’s” reply to Frank Sinatra, although he infused his vocal performances with extra jazz content material than “Ol’ Blues Eyes,” which included scatting – a ability Tormé discovered from his good friend, Ella Fitzgerald.
The Balladeer
Verve Information was based in 1956 by jazz impresario Norman Granz, initially as a car to showcase the expertise of his protege, singer Ella Fitzgerald, and take her into the mainstream. Mel Tormé joined his good friend on the label in 1958, hoping that they might document a duet collectively, although a collaboration between them did not materialize. Nonetheless, the eight albums Tormé recorded at Verve showcased his voice in a variety of settings, from ballads to swing and Latin numbers to harmonized vocal tunes with the Meltones.
For a lot of, his velour voice with its easy contours and heat, caressing sound might be heard at its greatest on ballads, which spotlighted his ability as a storyteller by means of his nuanced emotional supply. Tormé, his stellar debut LP for Verve, helmed by Granz with fabulous preparations by Marty Paich, contained a haunting studying of the funereal ballad, “Gloomy Sunday,” a suicidal-themed lament for misplaced love related to Billie Vacation. Tormé’s jazz aspect can be highlighted on his delicate interpretation of jazz pianist Thelonious Monk‘s “Round Midnight,” the place the vocal is counterpointed by a tinkling blues piano.
Tormé’s lunar-themed third Verve album, Swingin’ On The Moon, his second LP from 1960, included two romantic ballads organized by Russell Garcia that highlighted his voice’s lulling, mellow sonorities; a lush remake of “Blue Moon,” his Prime 20 US hit for Capitol Information from 1949, and the atmospheric “Moonlight In Vermont,” which begins with an acapella vocal and comprises descending string passages.
Tormé reunited together with his previous group The Meltones on “Hit The Road To Dreamland,” taken from his 1959 album, Again In City. The sleepy lullaby finds Tormé’s lead vocal supported by close-harmonized pillows of sound sung by Sue Allen, Tom Kenny, Ginny O’Connor, and Bernie Parke.
The Swinger
Although Mel Tormé’s caressing voice was suited to languid ballads, he may additionally ship vigorous songs with a swing-easy swagger. His album Swings Shubert Alley – named after New York’s well-known theater district – reunited him with Marty Paich, who had been Tormé’s arranger on 4 LPs he recorded for Bethlehem Information and whom the singer described as “a masterful writer for strings and woodwinds.” Paich, main a Dektette (a ten-man combo modeled on Gerry Mulligan’s groundbreaking jazz ensemble) conjured a chic association for the flippantly swinging “Too Close For Comfort” and quite a lot of tones and textures on “Old Devil Moon,” which begins as a ballad and morphs right into a finger-clicking swinger with interlocking brass harmonies. There’s a palpable bebop tinge to a crackerjack quantity known as “Too Darn Hot,” the place Tormé’s well-rounded sound contrasts with the band’s scorching power.
One other uptempo barnstormer is “Down For Double,” from the 1962 LP, I Dig The Duke, I Dig The Rely, which finds Tormé making an attempt on a basic Rely Basie quantity for measurement. The singer’s last Verve album, 1962’s My Variety Of Music, recorded in its entirety in London, additionally contained some cool swingers, together with the colourful “A Shine On Your Shoes,” a Sinatra-esque tune organized by famous British arranger/conductor, Geoff Love.
The Songwriter
After publishing his first track at 16, Mel Tormé shortly bloomed right into a prolific songwriter who amassed 250 copyrights, essentially the most well-known of which was the Yuletide favourite, “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire),” which he wrote on a sizzling summer time’s day in 1945 with Robert Wells. Tormé recorded it a number of occasions, providing a lush model recorded in London with arranger Wally Stott on the album, My Variety Of Music.
The identical album included two different songs written with Wells that Tormé had recorded earlier than; the much-covered “Born To Be Blue,” now thought of a jazz customary, which Tormé first waxed in 1946 and which was lined by Ray Charles and Chet Baker; and the extra obscure “County Fair,” an episodic quantity which begins mysteriously and morphs right into a knee-slapping Broadway-style quantity. (Tormé first recorded it in 1951 on his MGM LP, Mel Sings).
The Latin aspect
Mel Tormé was typically typecast as a crooner however his Verve albums confirmed that he was extra versatile than he was given credit score for. His 1959 LP, Olé Tormé, his second for Verve, was a Latin-themed challenge that noticed him collaborate with Sinatra arranger Billy Might on 12 songs which ranged from the raucous rock and roll-meets-swing of “At The Crossroads (Malagueña)” to “Baia,” which allowed Tormé to croon and swing on the similar time.
Arranger Marty Paich introduced some piquant Latin spice to Tormé’s dynamic interpretation of “Whatever Lola Wants,” a 1955 track a few devilish femme fatale which appeared on Swings Shubert Alley. (Curiously, Frank Rossolino’s trombone solo features a quote from bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night In Tunisia”).
A special Latin tinge colours Tormé’s interpretation of the dreamy “It Happened In Monterey,” a Frank Sinatra favourite which most singers normally render as a ballad however along with The Meltones, Tormé and arranger Marty Paich remodel it right into a richly harmonized slice of midtempo Latin jazz.
The Ellington Affect
The pianist and composer Duke Ellington was one in every of Mel Tormé’s idols and later grew to become his good friend. (Often, Duke allowed Tormé to play drums on stage together with his band). Tormé had lined Ellington tunes on a few of his early albums however in 1962 supplied a extra substantial homage to the Washington DC bandleader with I Dig The Duke, I Dig The Rely, a document which additionally paid tribute to a different jazz aristocrat, Rely Basie. Assisted by the svelte preparations of west coast maestro Johnny Mandel, Tormé transforms Ellington’s signature tune, “Take The ‘A’ Train,” right into a mellow piece of toe-tapping swing however exhibits extra urgency on the bluesy “I’m Gonna Go Fishin.’” Better of all is the elegant “Don’t Get Around Much Any More,” the place Tormé combines his refined phrasing with a simmering massive band swing beat.
After his Verve journey led to 1962, Tormé recorded for a succession of labels, each massive and small, however with little industrial success; a sufferer of jazz’s waning reputation in an age of pop and rock dominance. From the late Seventies onwards, Tormé’s profession obtained a welcome second wind; a resurgence that was aided by a number of 80s collaborations with pianist George Shearing, a reunion with Marty Paich’s Dektette, and a 1992 duets album with British singer Cleo Laine. Sadly, Tormé’s profession ended prematurely in 1996 when he was struck down by a stroke; a second one three years later, took his life, just some months after he had been awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Although he had many strings to his bow, it wouldn’t be honest to say Mel Tormé was a Jack of all trades; all the pieces he did, he was a grasp at, whether or not it was flying a aircraft, writing a track, or performing in a film. Arguably his best ability, although, as these 20 greatest Mel Tormé songs present, was singing, which he did supremely effectively.
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