Mel Tormé - Four Classic Albums (It's a Blue World / Sings Fred Astaire / California Suite (1957) / Back in Town) (Digitally Remastered 2023) '2023

Tracks list

Tracklist:

1. I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good (It's a Blue World) (03:19)
2. Till the Clouds Roll by (It's a Blue World) (02:53)
3. Isn't It Romantic? (It's a Blue World) (03:39)
4. I Know Why (It's a Blue World) (03:49)
5. All This and Heaven Too (It's a Blue World) (03:36)
6. How Long Has This Been Going on (It's a Blue World) (03:31)
7. Polka Dots and Moonbeams (It's a Blue World) (03:54)
8. You Leave Me Breathless (It's a Blue World) (03:21)
9. I Found a Million Dollar Baby (It's a Blue World) (03:41)
10. Wonderful One (It's a Blue World) (03:15)
11. It's a Blue World (It's a Blue World) (03:43)
12. Stay as Sweet as You Are (It's a Blue World) (03:21)
13. Nice Work If You Can Get It (Sings Fred Astaire) (03:09)
14. Something's Gotta Give (Sings Fred Astaire) (03:57)
15. A Foggy Day (Sings Fred Astaire) (02:44)
16. A Fine Romance (Sings Fred Astaire) (03:01)
17. Let's Call the Whole Thing off (Sings Fred Astaire) (03:26)
18. Top Hat, White Tie and Tails (Sings Fred Astaire) (03:09)
19. The Way You Look Tonight (Sings Fred Astaire) (02:21)
20. The Piccolino (Sings Fred Astaire) (02:34)
21. They Can't Take That Away from Me (Sings Fred Astaire) (03:01)
22. Cheek to Cheek (Sings Fred Astaire) (02:58)
23. Let's Face the Music and Dance (Sings Fred Astaire) (02:18)
24. They All Laughed (Sings Fred Astaire) (02:30)
25. The Territory (The Soil Was Good) (California Suite 1957) (02:57)
26. West Coast Is the Best Coast (California Suite 1957) (01:42)
27. La Jolla (California Suite 1957) (03:05)
28. Coney Island (California Suite 1957) (02:45)
29. Atlantic City Boardwalk (California Suite 1957) (02:33)
30. They Go to San Diego (California Suite 1957) (03:54)
31. San Fernando Valley (California Suite 1957) (05:04)
32. Got the Date on the Golden Gate (California Suite 1957) (04:21)
33. L.a. (California Suite 1957) (01:48)
34. Six O'clock (It's Time to Leave the Set) (California Suite 1957) (00:55)
35. Nothing to Do (But Shed a Tear) (California Suite 1957) (00:22)
36. Poor Little Extra Girl (California Suite 1957) (03:52)
37. West Coast Is the Best Coast (Reprise) (California Suite 1957) (03:06)
38. Makin' Whoopee (Back in Town) (02:50)
39. Baubles, Bangles and Beads (Back in Town) (02:14)
40. What Is This Thing Called Love (Back in Town) (02:55)
41. I've Never Been in Love Before (Back in Town) (02:58)
42. Truckin' (Back in Town) (03:31)
43. A Bunch of the Blues (Back in Town) (04:28)
44. It Happened in Monterey (Back in Town) (02:48)
45. I Hadn't Anyone Till You (Back in Town) (03:36)
46. A Smooth One (Back in Town) (02:58)
47. Don't Dream of Anybody but Me (Back in Town) (02:44)
48. Some Like It Hot (Back in Town) (03:34)
49. Hit the Road to Dreamland (Back in Town) (02:24)


 moreNevertheless, Tormé remains best-known as a singer, and as a singer
his career was one of considerable artistic achievement and frequent commercial
frustration, particularly on records. That 1925 birth date, despite his
precocity, meant that, like such contemporaries as Tony Bennett, he grew up with
a love for swing music and jazz in general, only to find that, as he became an
adult, that music was pushed to the margins commercially and that as a performer
he was faced with a choice between singing what he liked to a limited audience
or compromising to appeal to a wider one, a choice that became even starker with
the onset of the "rock era" in the mid-'50s. And like Bennett and only a few
others, he succeeded largely through persistence, bending to the extent he had
to, but weathering many lean years until the '80s, when he found a sympathetic
record company and renewed popular interest in the kind of music he wanted to
perform. Unlike Bennett, he persevered despite very limited commercial impact as
a record seller. But he made up for that 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). Describing a low point in his life in his autobiography,
he wrote that he came to feel he didn't have a career, only a series of jobs. If
so, his singing and the wide variety of other talents he exhibited assured that
he was never out of work.

Tormé was the descendant of Russian Jews who settled in Chicago. When he was
born, his father owned a dry goods store, but both parents were musical: his
father sang, and his mother played the piano. Tormé himself revealed his
musical talent at an amazingly young age. According to his mother, he sang his
first complete song at ten months. By the age of four, he would sing along with
music on the radio, showing enough interest in the Coon-Sanders Orchestra on
their remote broadcast from the Blackhawk Hotel in Chicago that his parents took
him to see the band one Monday night. That was the beginning of his career.
Bandleaders Joe Sanders and Carlton Coon took notice of him and had him sing
with the band as a novelty for nearly six months, followed by engagements with
other bands.

As a child, Tormé performed in local vaudeville troupes. He also took up the
drums. In 1934, he won a competition at the Chicago World's Fair for potential
child radio performers, and that led to a series of roles on radio dramas
broadcast out of Chicago that lasted until his voice changed in his early teens.
Meanwhile, he continued to sing and began writing his own songs. While attending
Hyde Park High School, he played in bands with other students. In 1940, at the
age of 15, he auditioned a song he had written, "Lament to Love," for bandleader
Harry James, also playing drums at the audition. James initially invited him to
join his band, but later decided he was too young. James did, however, record
"Lament to Love" for Columbia Records, and it spent a week at number ten in the
charts in August 1941. The success of the song led to a contact with bandleader
Ben Pollack who, in 1942, was putting together a band to be fronted by comedian
Chico Marx of the Marx Brothers at a time when many musicians were being drafted
into the military to fight in World War II. Now, Tormé's age worked to his
advantage. At 16, he was old enough to drop out of high school, but too young
for military service, and in August 1942 he joined the band, leading its vocal
group and later substituting as its drummer. (He went on to earn his diploma
from Los Angeles High School in 1944, then spent a brief spell in the army
before being discharged due to flat feet.) Two airchecks by this band, recorded
December 20, 1942, constitute the earliest Tormé recordings. Tormé is
heard singing the Irving Berlin song "Abraham" from the then-current movie
Holiday Inn and playing a drum solo on "Pagliacci (Vesti la Giubba)."

While appearing with Chico Marx in New York, Tormé was auditioned by a movie
scout for RKO Pictures, and when the band broke up in July 1943, he was cast in
the movie musical Higher and Higher, which began shooting in August. Based on a
Rodgers & Hart musical, but substituting a score by Jimmy McHugh and Harold
Adamson, the film is remembered as Frank Sinatra's first featured appearance on
screen. The 17-year-old Tormé's role was much smaller, but he was heard
singing on four songs when it opened in December. Meanwhile, on Pollack's
advice, he had begun working with a vocal group out of Los Angeles City College
called the Schoolkids. He became the featured singer and arranger for the group,
which was renamed Mel Tormé & His Mel-Tones. He also got his only starring
role in a feature film with the B-picture Pardon My Rhythm, released by
Universal in May 1944, which featured his compositions "Munchies" (co-written by
Irving Bibo) and "Drummer Boy."

Mel Tormé & His Mel-Tones made their recording debut with the single "White
Christmas"/"Where or When" cut for tiny Jewel Records in 1944. They also began
appearing on the radio, notably on the comedy series Niles and Prindle, which
ran from January to June 1945. And they appeared in the Columbia film Let's Go
Steady in March 1945, singing several of Tormé's compositions. (Tormé
continued to work without them as well, appearing in the B-picture Junior Miss
in June.) Contracted to major-label Decca Records, the group sang background
vocals on two singles, Eugenie Baird's "I Fall in Love Too Easily," which
charted in October, and Bing Crosby's "Day by Day," in the charts in March 1946.
They then moved to the newly formed Musicraft label, and their featured vocals
on the Irving Berlin song "I Got the Sun in the Morning" from the new musical
Annie Get Your Gun, as recorded by Artie Shaw & His Orchestra, gave them a chart
entry in July. In the meantime, Tormé continued to make small or even cameo
appearances in films, turning up in Warner Bros.' Janie Gets Married in June and
the Cole Porter bio-pic Night and Day in July.

Tormé & the Mel-Tones released more records on Musicraft, including "It's
Dreamtime," which became their only chart entry in May 1947, but by November
1946, Tormé had acceded to his manager Carlos Gastel's plan to launch a solo
career. (He continued to do occasional work with the Mel-Tones for many years,
however.) Gastel also managed Peggy Lee and Nat King Cole. It was Cole's group,
the King Cole Trio, that made the first recording of "The Christmas Song (Merry
Christmas to You)," which Tormé had written with his songwriting partner
Robert Wells. Occasionally identified by its opening line, "Chestnuts roasting
on an open fire," "The Christmas Song" peaked at number three for the trio in
late December 1946, which was only the beginning of its success. Half a century
later, Tormé estimated that there had been 1,700 recordings of it.

The solo career of the 21-year-old Mel Tormé was launched formally with his
first nightclub engagement at the Bocage in Los Angeles in early 1947, the start
of nearly 50 years of regular work for him. Gastel arranged a movie contract
with MGM, and in February, Tormé began shooting a supporting role in Good
News, based on the 1930 Henderson-DeSylva-Brown musical. He left before filming
was completed to accept an offer to make his New York club debut at the
Copacabana in May, then stayed on the East Coast when he was offered a 15-minute
radio series, The Mel Tormé Show, on NBC. Back in Los Angeles later in 1947,
he composed the title song for the RKO film Magic Town, released in August.

Good News opened in December 1947, and Tormé was next given a part in the
Rodgers & Hart bio-pic Words and Music, singing "Blue Moon." In the summer of
1948, NBC revived The Mel Tormé Show as a half-hour situation comedy with
music originating out of Los Angeles. Tormé also got another movie
songwriting assignment; he and Wells wrote "The County Fair," for the Walt
Disney Pictures animated film So Dear to My Heart, which, like Words and Music,
was released in December 1948. Gastel arranged for Tormé to be signed to
Capitol Records, the home of his clients Cole and Lee, and Tormé's second
session for the label in January 1949 included "Careless Hands," which became a
number one hit in April. He followed it with a double-sided hit, "Again," which
reached number three, and "Blue Moon," which got to number 20. "The Four Winds
and the Seven Seas," cut in May, peaked at number ten in July; "The Old Master
Painter," a duet with Peggy Lee, got to number nine in January 1950; and the
Rodgers & Hart song "Bewitched" (aka "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered") hit
number eight in July 1950. But while Tormé's work as a recording artist was
at its commercial apex, his film career slipped away. Cast in MGM's The Duchess
of Idaho with Esther Williams, he found when it was released in June 1950 that
his role had been trimmed to a handful of lines of dialogue, his one song left
on the cutting-room floor.

In addition to his successful singles, Tormé conceived an ambitious musical
work that was his answer to Gordon Jenkins' tone poem Manhattan Tower Suite.
California Suite, with the Mel-Tones and an orchestra conducted by Jud Conlon
(plus Peggy Lee performing under a pseudonym), was recorded in November 1949 and
issued as Tormé's (and Capitol's) first LP in 1950.

Tormé scored his last chart entry for ten years with "Anywhere I Wander" in
November 1952. It came from his final session for Capitol, after which he was
without a label affiliation for a year before signing to the Coral subsidiary of
Decca Records. Several singles sessions followed over the next year, and on
December 15, 1954, Coral recorded a performance at the Crescendo Club in Los
Angeles that resulted in the 1955 LP Gene Norman Presents Mel Tormé "Live" at
the Crescendo, the first of many Tormé live albums. The singer moved to the
small jazz label Bethlehem Records, starting with a ballad LP, It's a Blue
World, recorded in August 1955. This was followed by the first of many
recordings made in association with pianist/arranger Marty Paich, Mel Tormé
and the Marty Paich Dek-Tette, recorded in January 1956, and by a studio-cast
recording of Porgy and Bess in which Tormé sang the part of Porgy to Frances
Faye's Bess, recorded in May.

Tormé had begun to expand his touring territory overseas, appearing in
Australia in the fall of 1955, and in the spring of 1956, the Rodgers & Hart
song "Mountain Greenery," excerpted from the Coral live album, was released as a
single in the U.K., reaching the Top Ten in July, in time for the singer's first
visit to Europe. Back in Los Angeles in November, he cut the LP Mel Tormé
Sings Fred Astaire with Marty Paich and, on February 22, 1957, returned to the
Crescendo Club for another live album, confusingly titled Gene Norman Presents
Mel Tormé at the Crescendo. The following month, Bethlehem added to the
confusion in the record racks by having Tormé recut California Suite. In its
defense, the label was in trouble financially; after one more Tormé LP, Songs
for Any Taste (actually consisting of leftover tracks from the Crescendo date),
Bethlehem went out of business. Back in the U.K. in the summer of 1957, Tormé
cut an album on Philips Records for his English fans, Tormé Meets the
British. In the U.S. in November, he contracted to the tiny Tops label for
Prelude to a Kiss, an album subsequently reissued over and over under various
titles.

On February 14, 1957, Tormé had taken a non-singing acting role in the
television drama The Comedian, broadcast live on the prestigious Playhouse 90
series. The appearance reawakened his film career, and he made a series of
appearances as a straight actor in usually low-budget films: The Fearmakers
(1958), The Big Operator (1959), Girls Town (1959), Walk Like a Dragon (1960)
(for which he wrote the title song), and The Private Lives of Adam and Eve
(1961). His recording career picked up in 1958, when he was signed to impresario
Norman Granz's jazz-oriented Verve Records, the same label on which such peers
as Ella Fitzgerald recorded. The result was eight albums over the next four
years: Tormé; Olé Tormé: Mel Tormé Goes South of the Border with
Billy May; Back in Town (with the Mel-Tones); Mel Tormé Swings Shubert Alley;
Swingin' on the Moon; Broadway, Right Now! (with Margaret Whiting); I Dig the
Duke! I Dig the Count!; and My Kind of Music. The albums were well received,
especially by the jazz community, without being big sellers. But by the early
'60s, Verve was the subsidiary of a large record company, no longer an
independent jazz label, and Tormé accepted an offer from what he thought
would be the more sympathetic Ertegun brothers, Ahmet and Nesuhi, and their
Atlantic Records label.

Unfortunately, Atlantic wanted Tormé to make more pop-oriented music. His
initial effort for them, the live album Mel Tormé at the Red Hill, cut in
March 1962, was what he had in mind, but Atlantic got what it wanted with the
bluesy single "Comin' Home Baby," cut in September 1962, which gave Tormé a
Top 40 hit on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and earned him his first two
Grammy nominations (Best Solo Performance, Male, and Best Rhythm & Blues
Recording), but which he did not care for. Atlantic rushed out a Comin' Home
Baby! LP, but it did not chart.

In the spring of 1963, Tormé accepted an offer to serve as musical advisor
for the upcoming television series The Judy Garland Show. He wrote arrangements
and special material for the musical variety program, which broadcast 26
hour-long episodes beginning on Sunday night, September 29, 1963, and ending on
March 29, 1964, when it was canceled. (He later recounted his experiences on the
show in his first book, The Other Side of the Rainbow, published in 1970.) He
took time out from the job in November 1963 to record the title song for the
film Sunday in New York, which played under the credits when the picture was
released the following month. Also in December he recorded an accompanying
Atlantic LP, Mel Tormé Sings Sunday in New York & Other Songs About New York,
marking the end of his association with the label.

Finished with The Judy Garland Show in the winter of 1964, Tormé returned to
his main occupation, live performing. He signed to Columbia Records, for which
he made a few singles during the year. And he took time out to play himself in
the film The Patsy, released during the summer. He cut his first Columbia LP,
That's All, in sessions conducted in December 1964 and March 1965.
Unfortunately, he enjoyed his stay at Columbia even less than he had his time on
Atlantic, especially as the label began pressuring him to record contemporary
pop/rock songs. His 1966 sessions for the LP Right Now! included recent hits
like "Homeward Bound," "Red Rubber Ball," and "Secret Agent Man," not his sort
of thing at all. "Lover's Roulette" gave him a Top Ten hit on the Easy Listening
chart in the summer of 1967, but it came from his next-to-last session for
Columbia; by the end of the year he was off the label.

Tormé had appeared in another film, A Man Called Adam, in the summer of 1966,
again playing himself, and cut the song "All That Jazz" (not to be confused with
the song of the same title from the 1975 musical Chicago) for the soundtrack LP
released on Reprise Records. He next began creating television roles for
himself, writing an episode of the series Run for Your Life and guest-starring
in it, then adapting Dollarhide, a Western novel he had written under a
pseudonym in the '50s, into an episode of The Virginian and appearing on the
show. He had, however, largely given up on his recordings, at least as a venue
for work he liked, agreeing to record contracts as a necessary evil to help
promote his live performances. Moving to Liberty Records in early 1968, he cut
the LP A Day in the Life of Bonnie and Clyde, having composed the title song,
the rest of the selections dating from the 1920s and '30s. In 1969, he was
surprised to find himself back on Capitol Records, but dutifully cut what he
called two "wonderfully forgettable" albums for the label, A Time for Us and
Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head. After this he disappeared from the record
shelves for several years, while continuing to perform regularly.

In May 1971, Tormé served as the host for an ABC documentary TV series, It
Was a Very Good Year, each episode chronicling a year between 1919 and 1964. The
series ran through the end of August. He returned to television in an acting
role with his starring performance in the TV movie Snowman in 1974. He would
continue to make occasional appearances in acting and singing roles on TV for
the rest of his career. In September 1974, while appearing at the Maisonette
Room in the St. Regis Hotel in New York with Al Porcino & His Orchestra,
Tormé recorded a live album that was picked up by Atlantic Records and
released as Live at the Maisonette in 1975. He claimed never to have seen any
money from the LP, but it brought him his third Grammy nomination, not as a
singer, but for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) for his "Gershwin
Medley." In 1976, he finally signed a new record contract with Gryphon Records,
recording the LP Tormé! A New Album in London in June 1977. It was followed
by the January 1978 sessions for Together Again: For the First Time, on which he
was co-billed with his longtime friend, drummer and bandleader Buddy Rich,
actually released prior to Tormé! A New Album. The Rich LP earned Tormé
his fourth Grammy nomination, in the Best Jazz Vocal Performance category in
1978 (the category had been created only two years earlier), while Tormé! A
New Album brought him his fifth in the same category in 1979. There was a sixth
Grammy nomination, again for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, for his next LP, Mel
Tormé and Friends Recorded Live at Marty's New York City, which was released
on Finesse Records in 1981 and reached number 44 in the Billboard jazz chart.
Encore at Marty's followed in 1982 on Flair Records.

By the early '80s, with traditional pop music beginning to come back into vogue,
Tormé had weathered a long drought and was becoming appreciated as a jazz
singer, performing regularly at jazz festivals, in prestigious concert halls,
and with symphony orchestras, along with yearly engagements at top clubs in
major cities around the world. In April 1982, he appeared with jazz pianist
George Shearing at the Peacock Court of the Hotel Mark Hopkins in San Francisco,
their show recorded for the album An Evening with George Shearing & Mel
Tormé, released by the jazz-oriented West Coast label Concord Records.
Reaching number 34 in the jazz chart, it marked the beginning of felicitous and
prolific associations with both Shearing and Concord. Tormé was nominated for
his seventh Grammy, as usual for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, for 1982, and
though he protested that Shearing deserved equal recognition, he won his first
Grammy at the ceremony held in February 1983. The following month, he re-teamed
with Shearing for the studio album Top Drawer, the title track of which won him
a second Grammy Award in February 1984. Another live album with Shearing, An
Evening at Charlie's, cut in Washington, D.C., in October 1983 and released in
1984, produced his ninth Grammy nomination, and another studio set with
Shearing, An Elegant Evening, recorded in May 1985, brought a tenth nomination
for 1986.

In May 1986, Tormé interrupted his string of duet albums with Shearing but
maintained his association with Concord, recording Mel Tormé with Rob
McConnell and the Boss Brass; it hit number 11 in the jazz chart. The Shearing
pairing was resumed in August 1987 with a session for the album A Vintage Year.
He renewed an older association in August 1988, cutting the LP Reunion with
Marty Paich and a reconstituted Dek-tette. The reunion continued in Japan in
December, producing the 1989 album In Concert Tokyo. Also in 1988, Tormé
published his autobiography, It Wasn't All Velvet. A Tormé performance at the
Concord Jazz Festival in August 1990 resulted in his next album, Night at the
Concord Pavilion, and the following month the singer and Shearing got back
together in the studio for a collection of 1940s songs, Mel and George "Do"
World War II. Two months after that, he was captured live in Japan for the album
Fujitsu-Concord Jazz Festival '90. He continued his busy recording schedule in
March 1991, cutting a duet album with Cleo Laine, Nothing Without You. The year
also brought the publication of his long-promised biography of his friend Buddy
Rich, Traps, The Drum Wonder.

In 1992, Tormé interrupted his run with Concord to cut a holiday collection,
Christmas Songs, for Telarc Records. Amazingly, it brought him his first-ever
chart placing in the listings for pop albums that December. Also for Telarc, he
cut the live album The Great American Songbook in October 1992. But he returned
to Concord only a month later for Sing Sing Sing, recorded with an all-star
quintet back at the Fujitsu-Concord Jazz Festival in Tokyo. That made for enough
recordings for a while, and he stuck to live performances until May 1994, when
he cut the studio album A Tribute to Bing Crosby. A year later, he reunited with
Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass for Velvet & Brass.

With Tormé's assistance, Rhino Records mounted the first comprehensive box
set of his recordings, The Mel Tormé Collection 1944-1985, in 1996, and in
July he recorded the live album An Evening with Mel Tormé for the A&E
network. The following month, on August 8, he suffered a stroke. While he had
recovered sufficiently by November to be released from the hospital, he faced
continuing medical challenges for the next three years and never returned to
performing. In February 1999, Tormé was awarded the Grammy Lifetime
Achievement Award. He died at 73 on June 5, 1999.

While Tormé disavowed some of his recordings in his autobiography,
particularly the ones made with pop intentions in the 1960s, his more
jazz-styled sides seem to have met his high standards, as well as those of
critics and fans. In truth, Tormé brought his considerable skills to any
material he tackled, and his large body of recordings fully justifies the
assessment of him as a major jazz singer of the post-World War II era. ©
William Ruhlmann



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