Mel Torme
Mel Torme was among the most enduring singers from the big-band era, maligned by some as the epitome of lounge singer, acclaimed by many more as one of a talented and serious vocalist.
Legend has it that Torme began singing for his supper a Chicago restaurant when he was four and was working the vaudeville circuit soon after. He worked as a child actor on radio, and began writing songs in his early teens. In the early 1940s, he quit high school to became a boy singer (and drummer and part-time arranger) with Chico Marx's band.
His first fame coincided with Frank Sinatra's, and the two appeared together in their first film, "Higher and Higher." He wanted to be a jazz singer, "but I got sidetracked," he said. His manager "felt the way to the gold was for me to become a crooner. For a long period I was singing mushy, sentimental songs." His publicist coined the name, "The Velvet Fog," to describe his smooth style but he hated it (hecklers called him "The Velvet Frog").
In 1944, he formed his own vocal group, the Mel-Tones, which included a young Les Baxter and Henry Mancini's future wife, Ginny O'Connor. The Mel-Tones had several hits, on their own as well as paired with Artie Shaw's band. "What is This Thing Called Love?," which later became a jazz standard, was their biggest. The Mel-Tones were among the first of the jazz-influenced vocal groups, setting the direction later followed by the Hi-Los and the Manhattan Transfer.
In 1947, he broke out as a solo artist, and has stayed in fairly steady, if not spectacular, demand, since then. He had one #1 hit, "Careless Love," in 1949, and several minor hits, among them "Mountain Greenery" in 1956. He recorded several LPs in the mid-1950s with the Marty Paich Dektette, a collection of some of the best West Coast jazz performers, that are considered his best work. In 1962, he had a surprise hit with "Comin' Home, Baby," arranged by Claus Ogerman, a driving R&B-flavored number that more than a few mistook for something by Ray Charles, particular with its call-and-response bits with a female back-up group sounding remarkably similar to the Raelettes. Quincy Jones and Kai Winding both had hits with killer instrumental covers of this great tune. Ethel Waters, a great jazz and gospel singer, once said that Torme "is the only white man who sings with the soul of a black man."
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Multiple Reviews
Album Review
- My Kind of Music by David Adler
- In The Studio And In Concert by AAJ Staff
- In the Studio and in Concert by Dave Hughes
- In The Studio And In Concrt by Mark Corroto
- Live At The Playboy Jazz Festival by Jim Santella
- The London Sessions by Jack Bowers
- Torme by David Rickert
- The Classic Concert Live by George Harris
- Velvet Moods Featuring the Original California Suite by David Rickert
September 13, 2022
Jazz Musician of the Day: Mel Torme
September 13, 2021
Jazz Musician of the Day: Mel Torme
September 13, 2020
Jazz Musician of the Day: Mel Torme
September 13, 2019
Jazz Musician of the Day: Mel Torme
September 13, 2018
Jazz Musician of the Day: Mel Torme
September 13, 2017
Jazz Musician of the Day: Mel Torme
September 13, 2016
Jazz Musician of the Day: Mel Torme
November 17, 2015
September 12, 2015
Jazz Musician of the Day: Mel Torme