Mel Tormé

Singer

• Born: September 13, 1925
• Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
• Died: June 5, 1999
• Place of death: Los Angeles, California

American jazz singer, composer, and drummer

Tormé’s smooth and remarkably controlled tenor voice made him one of the most talented white jazz singers during the height of his career in the 1950’s.

The Life

Melvin Howard Tormé (tohr-MAY) grew up on Chicago’s South Side, born to Russian-Jewish parents who sang, played piano, and loved music. His earliest musical influences included African American music, sacred and secular Jewish music, and contemporary popular songs sung at home or heard on the radio. He exhibited very early imitative talents through his voice and drumming. His winning audition for NBC radio producer Walter Wicker at the Chicago World Fair led to his career as a child radio star, as well as acting lessons and appearances in locally made films.

As a child, then, Tormé had an appreciation of jazz greats, like Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa, and he began writing songs at thirteen. Harry James invited him to play drums with his band. When the opportunity fell through, James played and had broadcast an arrangement of the fifteen-year-old’s “Lament to Love.” At sixteen Tormé became a singer and composer-arranger for Chico Marx’s orchestra in California. In 1943 he made his film debut in Higher and Higher (also Frank Sinatra’s film debut). He also formed his vocal quintet, Mel Tormé and His Mel Tones, with the later famous exotica composer Les Baxter, Ginny O’Connor (who later became a film composer and conductor Henry Mancini’s wife), Betty Beveridge, and Bernie Parke. They fronted Artie Shaw and His Orchestra. About four years later, Tormé became a solo act.

Tormé recorded for big and small record labels in the 1940’s and 1950’s: Decca, Musicraft, Capitol, Bethlehem, and Verve. His repertory often included sentimental songs, whether they were jazz or pop standards. In 1945 he composed “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)” with Bob Wells. A year later, Nat King Cole made the best-known recording of the song. By 1949, Tormé had recorded his first album, Mel Tormé’s California Suite, with Capitol Records. He collaborated with arranger Marty Paich between 1955 and 1957 on albums for Bethlehem Records and from 1958 to 1961 for Verve.

In the early 1960’s, he became the Special Musical Material Writer and Advisor on The Judy Garland Show on CBS, although after working only nine months on the show, the tempestuous Garland had him fired. Tormé continued recording, but he had trouble attaining commercial success into the 1970’s. At that time, the multitalented Tormé initiated a writing career, which eventually included completing four nonfiction books and one novel. From the 1980’s to the early 1990’s he worked with arranger George Shearing. From the late 1980’s to the early 1990’s, references to Tormé and his appearances as himself in the television situation comedy Night Court introduced new audiences to the jazz singer.

In the 1990’s, Tormé continued recording albums while making appearances on television shows such as Seinfeld. His singing career ended with his stroke in 1996; he died of a subsequent stroke in 1999.

The Music

Tormé lent his smooth tenor with highly controlled vibrato and flourishes to numerous jazz and popular standards, as well as his own compositions. Not only do his best recordings demonstrate his superior performance and interpretive abilities; they also reveal that Tormé had a sensitive understanding of music and a fine musical ear.

It’s a Blue World.This 1955 album includes Tormé’s renditions of sentimental, sad ballads such as the title song, Duke Ellington and Paul Francis Webster’s “I’ve Got It Bad (and That Ain’t Good),” and Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke’s “Polka Dots and Moonbeams.” It exhibits the diverse and demanding repertoire that Tormé performed in the early stages of his career while recording for the small jazz label Bethlehem.

Swingin’ on the Moon.Here Tormé sings jazz arrangements of popular standards such as Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s “Blue Moon” and John Blackburn and Karl Suessdorf’s “Moonlight in Vermont.” This 1960 recording for Verve features accompaniment by the Russ Garcia Orchestra.

That’s All.On this album, produced by Columbia in 1964, Tormé worked with arranger Robert Mersey to select the most challenging collection of ballads. The album represents the range and various musical interests of both Tormé and Mersey. The songs featured include Alan Brandt and Bob Haymes’s “That’s All,” Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” George and Ira Gershwin’s “Isn’t It a Pity?,” Rodgers and Hart’s “My Romance,” and João Gilberto and Norman Gimbel’s “Ho-Ba-La-La.” Mersey’s careful but lush and highly intricate orchestration never upstages Tormé’s soaring vocals, whose phrasing is at its best on this album. For example, in his version of Vernon Duke and E. Y. Harburg’s “What Is There to Say?,” Tormé holds the last note at the end of most phrases so that the orchestra appears unable to utter anything between them. This performance of the song evokes a conversation between Tormé and the large studio orchestra. “Ho-Ba-La-La” demonstrates Tormé’s formidable skills as a scat singer.

Top Drawer.This 1983 album for Concord Records features Tormé’s take on well-known swing standards and demonstrates his appreciation of Johnny Mercer through “How Do You Say ’Auf Wiedersehen’?” and “Here’s to My Lady.” It showcases Tormé’s bebop vocal skills in his version of Sonny Rollins’s “Oleo” and features Shearing’s accompaniment on piano. The album also contains Tormé’s rendition of Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish’s “Stardust.” Fujitsu-Concord Jazz Festival in Japan ’90.Tormé’s concert at the Jazz Festival in Japan was released in 1991. Tormé is accompanied by the Howard Wess Orchestra, and the album features Tormé on drums and offers an amazing rendition of “Stardust.” Other impressive performances include Eric Maschwitz and Manning Sherwin’s “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Wave,” and Count Basie’s “Swingin’ the Blues.” Tormé also sings Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind,” which was unusual since he hated rock.

Musical Legacy

Tormé recorded definitive versions of “Moonlight in Vermont,” “That’s All,” “’Round Midnight,” and “Blue Moon.” His songwriting was immortalized through the ubiquitous holiday classic “The Christmas Song.” He earned numerous Grammy nominations and two Grammy Awards: in 1962 for Best Male Vocalist and Best Rhythm and Blues Recording for Comin’ Home Baby!, and in 1999 for Lifetime Achievement.

Principal Recordings

albums:Mel Tormé’s California Suite, 1949; Live at the Crescendo, 1954; Musical Sounds Are the Best Songs, 1954; It’s a Blue World, 1955; Lulu’s Back in Town, 1956; Mel Tormé and the Marty Paich Dek-Tette, 1956 (with Marty Paich and the Dek-Tette); Sings Fred Astaire, 1956; Songs for Any Taste, 1956; Prelude to a Kiss, 1957; Tormé Meets the British: The London Recordings, 1956-1957, 1957; Mel Tormé Sings About Love, 1958; Tormé, 1958; Back in Town, 1959 (with the Mel-Tones); Olé Tormé: Mel Tormé Goes South of the Border with Billy May, 1959 (with Billy May); Broadway, Right Now!, 1960 (with Margaret Whiting); The Duke Ellington and Count Basie Songbooks, 1960 (with the Johnny Mandel Orchestra); I Dig the Duke! I Dig the Count!, 1960; Mel Tormé Swings Shubert Alley, 1960; Swingin’ on the Moon, 1960; My Kind of Music, 1961; Comin’ Home Baby!, 1962; Mel Tormé at the Red Hill, 1962; Mel Tormé Sings Sunday in New York and Other Songs About New York, 1963; That’s All, 1964; Right Now!, 1966; A Day in the Life of Bonnie and Clyde, 1968; A Time for Us (Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet), 1969; Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, 1969; Live at the Maisonette, 1974; Together Again, 1978 (with Buddy Rich); Top Drawer, 1983; Mel Tormé, Rob McConnell, and the Boss Brass, 1986 (with Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass); Reunion, 1988 (with Marty Paich and the Dek-Tette); Mel and George “Do” World War II, 1990 (with George Shearing); Fujitsu-Concord Jazz Festival in Japan ’90, 1991; Christmas Songs, 1992; Nothing Without You, 1992 (with Cleo Lane); A Tribute to Bing Crosby, 1994; Velvet and Brass, 1995 (with Rob McConnell’s Boss Brass).

writings of interest:The Other Side of the Rainbow: With Judy Garland on the Dawn Patrol, 1970; It Wasn’t All Velvet: An Autobiography, 1988; Traps, the Drum Wonder: The Life of Buddy Rich, 1991; My Singing Teachers: Reflections on Singing Popular Music, 1994.

Bibliography

Hulme, George. Mel Tormé: A Chronicle of His Recordings, Books, and Films. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2000. This sourcebook offers a historical time line about Tormé and information about his music, acting, and writing projects.

Tormé, Mel. It Wasn’t All Velvet. New York: Viking, 1988. Tormé’s autobiography describes his love of music, his family’s support, his show business experiences, and his problems with divorce.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. My Singing Teachers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Tormé reminisces about his singing teachers and offers advice to readers interested in singing.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Other Side of the Rainbow with Judy Garland on the Dawn Patrol. New York: William Morrow, 1970. This candid autobiographical account focuses on Tormé’s time as Special Musical Material Writer and Advisor on CBS’s The Judy Garland Show.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Traps, the Drum Wonder: The Life of Buddy Rich. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. This biography combines Tormé’s personal account of Rich and interviews with Rich’s colleagues and family members.