Happy Mel Tormé's birthday!
posted 9-13-2010 - 11:25 pm

It's Velvet Fog Day. Were he still here with us, Mel Tormé would be a venerable 85 years old today. As it is, Tormé died in 1999 at the age of 73, but his music lives on. And he was a Chicagoan, born and bred, so I'm happy to write a few words about my jazz homeboy.

Born 10 years too late to become a big band singer, Tormé may have been pegged as a crooner early on, but he became a true jazz singer in short order. According to critic William Ruhlmann on Allmusic.com, Tormé did it "by being more appealing to the jazz audience, which responded to his obvious affection for the style and his talent for jazz singing (he was bested only by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald in his ability to scat)." Tormé also made it his job to keep improving his vocal technique throughout his lifetime.

Actually, Mel Tormé is the closest thing we have to a Renaissance man in jazz: as noted on Allmusic, his accomplishments included acting in more than a dozen feature films and on radio and television (not all of the roles included singing, either); hosting radio and TV shows; and writing television dramas, numerous articles for periodicals including Down Beat and The New York Times, and six published books of fiction, biography, and music criticism. He was also the musical advisor for The Judy Garland Show on television during the 1960s, which your parents or grandparents probably watched. In addition to being a singer, arranger, and prolific songwriter with more than 250 songs to his credit, Tormé was also one hell of drummer (see the video clip below). Still, most people know him best as the guy who wrote "The Christmas Song."


Mel Tormé and the Frank Wess Orchestra, 1990




Tormé held his own as a scat singer against the likes of Ella and Jon Hendricks. His scatting was expert and, like Ella's, always exuberant. His ballad style far outdid did common crooners like Perry Como and Andy Williams, as evidenced on his pairing during the 1980s with pianist George Shearing. The their two "Top Drawer" albums and several other records beautifully showcased the best of these two artists' respective talents. The rarely performed "How Do You Say Auf Wiedersehen?" on the first of those recordings is a particularly lovely rendition of the Johnny Mercer song, and Tormé's take of "Stardust" is the most aching, haunting version I've ever heard. The album also won a Grammy.

Tormé came to the attention of other jazz musicians early. He was 15 when he auditioned for bandleader Harry James. At the audition, the young Mel presented James with a song he'd written himself, "Lament To Love." James didn't take on Tormé, considering him too young, but he did use the song, which the band recorded for Columbia. The tune gave the band a week-long spot at #10 on the jazz charts in August of 1941. At 16, Tormé droppped out of high school and joined Ben Pollack's band as a vocalist and drummer. It was his first real jazz gig, and he worked pretty much steadily for five decades after that.


Ella and Mel at the 18th Grammy Awards, February 1976




At the age of 21, Tormé was already gigging in nightclubs. They would be his primary venue, along with concert halls and jazz festivals later in life. Even though his songbook went out of style on the pop charts by the 1960s, Tormé just persisted in singing the jazz he knew best until the fans came around again. And they did. Tormé's association with Rob McConnell and The Boss Brass and with the Marty Paitch Dektette during the 1980s reinvigorated Tormé's career. He took advantage of it, performing, traveling and recording regularly right up until he had a stroke in August of 1996. He had recorded the live album A&E Presents An Evening With Mel Tormé just a month earlier; that CD reached #25 on the jazz charts (the album includes one of my favorite versions of "Since I Fell For You," complete with a memorable flub near the end of the first verse). Tormé eventually recovered from the stroke, but he continued to be plagued with medical problems over the next three years and never performed again.

Tormé was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in February 1999. He died in Los Angeles four months later. But his legacy was secured: just before the A&E performance, he had assisted Rhino Records in putting together the first comprehensive retrospective of his recordings, the boxed set The Mel Tormé Collection, 1944-1985. A complete discography can be found at Allmusic.