Biography
From the 1940s through the 1990s Mel Tormé sustained a consistent career as a pop vocalist deeply rooted in jazz, appearing chiefly in nightclubs and concert settings. His 1988 memoir It Wasn't All Velvet, the title drawn from the sobriquet "The Velvet Fog" that a disc jockey coined in the 1940s to evoke his rich, expansive timbre, expressed a longing to have arrived a decade sooner, in 1915 instead of 1925. Had that wish been granted, Tormé would have shared an identical generational moment with Frank Sinatra and, like Sinatra, might have enjoyed an unbroken trajectory as a big-band vocalist. Given the scope of his abilities, he could also have led an orchestra; besides singing he played drums at a level that attracted road offers while still a teenager, composed the enduring holiday standard "The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)," and created arrangements for much of his own repertoire. Even this catalog only partially captures his output, which further encompassed roles in more than a dozen feature films plus radio and television appearances, hosting duties on both media, and authorship of television scripts, magazine pieces for Down Beat and The New York Times, and six books spanning fiction, biography, and music criticism.
Tormé nevertheless endures in public memory foremost as a vocalist whose path combined notable artistic accomplishment with recurrent commercial setbacks, especially on disc. The 1925 birth year, despite his early maturity, placed him alongside peers such as Tony Bennett in a generation that cherished swing and jazz yet confronted an adult market that increasingly sidelined those styles; performers therefore faced the dilemma of addressing a smaller audience with preferred material or diluting their approach for broader appeal, a pressure that intensified once the rock era began in the mid-1950s. Like Bennett and a handful of others, Tormé prevailed mainly through tenacity, yielding only when necessary while enduring lean periods until the 1980s, when a supportive label and fresh public interest in classic repertoire aligned. Unlike Bennett, he persisted with minimal sales impact as a recording artist, yet compensated by cultivating stronger rapport with jazz listeners who valued his evident affinity for the idiom and his scat prowess, exceeded only by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. In his autobiography he recalled a low period when he felt he possessed not a career but merely successive engagements; even so, his singing together with his manifold other skills ensured continuous employment.
Tormé descended from Russian Jewish immigrants who established themselves in Chicago. At the time of his birth his father operated a dry-goods store, yet both parents were musically inclined, the father as a singer and the mother as a pianist. Tormé displayed his own gifts extraordinarily early; his mother reported that he delivered a complete song at ten months. By age four he sang along with radio broadcasts, displaying particular enthusiasm for the Coon-Sanders Orchestra's remote from the Blackhawk Hotel, prompting his parents to take him to hear the ensemble on a Monday evening. That encounter initiated his professional life. Bandleaders Joe Sanders and Carlton Coon recognized his talent and featured him as a novelty attraction for nearly six months, after which additional band engagements followed.
As a youngster Tormé appeared with local vaudeville companies and began studying drums. In 1934 he won a Chicago World's Fair contest for aspiring child radio performers, leading to a string of dramatic roles on Chicago-originating broadcasts that continued until his voice changed in his early teens. Concurrently he kept singing and started composing original material. While enrolled at Hyde Park High School he performed in student ensembles. In 1940, at fifteen, he auditioned the song "Lament to Love" that he had written for bandleader Harry James, also playing drums during the hearing. James initially offered him a spot in the band but ultimately judged him too young; nevertheless James recorded the tune for Columbia Records, where it reached number ten for one week in August 1941. That success brought Tormé to the attention of Ben Pollack, who in 1942 assembled an orchestra fronted by comedian Chico Marx of the Marx Brothers amid widespread military inductions for World War II. Tormé's youth now proved advantageous: at sixteen he could leave high school yet remained ineligible for service, and in August 1942 he joined the group, directing its vocal ensemble and occasionally substituting on drums. He later earned a diploma from Los Angeles High School in 1944 before a brief army stint ended by medical discharge for flat feet. Two airchecks from December 20, 1942, preserve the earliest Tormé recordings; on them he sings the Irving Berlin song "Abraham" from the film Holiday Inn and executes a drum solo on "Pagliacci (Vesti la Giubba)."
While the Chico Marx band played New York, a scout from RKO Pictures auditioned Tormé, and when the orchestra disbanded in July 1943 he was cast in the musical Higher and Higher, which began filming the following month. Although derived from a Rodgers & Hart stage work, the picture substituted a score by Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson and is chiefly remembered for Frank Sinatra's screen debut. Tormé, then seventeen, had a smaller part yet sang on four numbers when the film opened in December. On Pollack's recommendation he had already begun collaborating with a vocal octet from Los Angeles City College known as the Schoolkids. He became the featured singer and arranger, and the ensemble was renamed Mel Tormé & His Mel-Tones. He also secured his sole starring film role in the Universal B-picture Pardon My Rhythm, released in May 1944, which included his compositions "Munchies" (co-written with Irving Bibo) and "Drummer Boy."
Mel Tormé & His Mel-Tones made their first records with the single "White Christmas"/"Where or When" for the small Jewel label in 1944. They also appeared on radio, most notably the comedy series Niles and Prindle that ran from January to June 1945, and performed in the Columbia film Let's Go Steady in March 1945, delivering several Tormé originals. Tormé continued independent work as well, appearing in the B-picture Junior Miss in June. Signed to major-label Decca, the group supplied background vocals on Eugenie Baird's "I Fall in Love Too Easily," which charted in October, and Bing Crosby's "Day by Day," which entered the charts in March 1946. They then moved to the new Musicraft imprint, and their featured singing on Artie Shaw & His Orchestra's version of the Irving Berlin song "I Got the Sun in the Morning" from Annie Get Your Gun produced a chart entry in July. Meanwhile Tormé maintained minor or cameo screen appearances, turning up in Warner Bros.' Janie Gets Married in June and the Cole Porter biography Night and Day in July.
Further Musicraft releases by Tormé & the Mel-Tones included "It's Dreamtime," their sole chart record in May 1947, yet by November 1946 Tormé had followed manager Carlos Gastel's advice to pursue a solo path, though he maintained occasional collaborations with the Mel-Tones for years afterward. Gastel also represented Peggy Lee and Nat King Cole. It was Cole's King Cole Trio that first recorded "The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)," written by Tormé with partner Robert Wells; sometimes known by its opening line "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire," the song reached number three for the trio in late December 1946 and went on to generate roughly 1,700 versions, according to Tormé's later estimate.
The twenty-one-year-old Tormé launched his solo career with a nightclub engagement at the Bocage in Los Angeles in early 1947, inaugurating nearly five decades of steady live work. Gastel secured an MGM film contract, and in February Tormé began shooting a supporting role in Good News, adapted from the 1930 Henderson-DeSylva-Brown musical. He departed before completion to make his New York club debut at the Copacabana in May, then remained on the East Coast for a fifteen-minute NBC radio series, The Mel Tormé Show. Later that year in Los Angeles he composed the title song for the RKO picture Magic Town, released in August.
Good News premiered in December 1947. Tormé next received a part in the Rodgers & Hart biography Words and Music, performing "Blue Moon." During summer 1948 NBC expanded The Mel Tormé Show into a half-hour situation comedy with music from Los Angeles. He also accepted another songwriting assignment, collaborating with Wells on "The County Fair" for the Disney animated feature So Dear to My Heart, released alongside Words and Music in December 1948. Gastel arranged a Capitol Records contract, the same label that housed Cole and Lee, and Tormé's second session in January 1949 produced "Careless Hands," which reached number one in April. Subsequent hits included the double-sided "Again," which peaked at number three, and "Blue Moon," which reached number twenty; "The Four Winds and the Seven Seas," recorded in May, climbed to number ten in July; the duet "The Old Master Painter" with Peggy Lee hit number nine in January 1950; and the Rodgers & Hart song "Bewitched" attained number eight in July 1950. Yet while his singles career peaked commercially, his film opportunities diminished; cast in MGM's The Duchess of Idaho with Esther Williams, he discovered upon its June 1950 release that his role had been reduced to a few lines and his sole song had been excised.
Beyond the hit singles, Tormé created an ambitious suite intended as his counterpart to Gordon Jenkins' Manhattan Tower Suite. California Suite, featuring the Mel-Tones and an orchestra under Jud Conlon (with Peggy Lee credited pseudonymously), was taped in November 1949 and issued as Tormé's and Capitol's first LP in 1950.
Tormé registered his final chart entry for a decade with "Anywhere I Wander" in November 1952. That session concluded his Capitol affiliation, leaving him label-less for a year until he signed with Decca's Coral subsidiary. Multiple singles dates followed, and on December 15, 1954, Coral captured a live performance at the Crescendo Club in Los Angeles that became the 1955 LP Gene Norman Presents Mel Tormé "Live" at the Crescendo, the first of numerous concert albums. He then moved to the jazz-oriented Bethlehem label, beginning with the ballad collection It's a Blue World, recorded in August 1955. Subsequent projects included the initial of many collaborations with pianist-arranger Marty Paich, Mel Tormé and the Marty Paich Dek-Tette, taped in January 1956, and a studio-cast Porgy and Bess in which Tormé portrayed Porgy opposite Frances Faye, recorded in May.
Tormé began extending his touring reach abroad, appearing in Australia in fall 1955; the following spring the Rodgers & Hart song "Mountain Greenery" from the Coral live album was issued as a single in the U.K., entering the Top Ten in July ahead of his first European visit. Back in Los Angeles in November he recorded Mel Tormé Sings Fred Astaire with Marty Paich, and on February 22, 1957, returned to the Crescendo for another live set, released under the similar title Gene Norman Presents Mel Tormé at the Crescendo. The next month Bethlehem added to catalog confusion by having Tormé re-record California Suite. The label was experiencing financial difficulties; after one additional Tormé LP, Songs for Any Taste (assembled from remaining Crescendo material), Bethlehem ceased operations. During a U.K. visit in summer 1957 Tormé recorded Tormé Meets the British for Philips, aimed at his British audience. In the U.S. that November he signed with the small Tops label for Prelude to a Kiss, an album later reissued repeatedly under varying titles.
On February 14, 1957, Tormé took a non-singing acting part in the live television drama The Comedian on Playhouse 90. The appearance revived his screen career, leading to a series of straight acting roles in generally modest 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 activity increased in 1958 when impresario Norman Granz signed him to the jazz-focused Verve label, home to peers such as Ella Fitzgerald. The association yielded eight albums over 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 releases received favorable jazz-community notice without achieving substantial sales. By the early 1960s Verve had become a subsidiary of a larger corporation, prompting Tormé to accept an offer from the Ertegun brothers, Ahmet and Nesuhi, at Atlantic Records.
Atlantic, however, steered Tormé toward more pop-oriented material. His first Atlantic project, the live album Mel Tormé at the Red Hill recorded in March 1962, reflected his own inclinations, yet the label obtained its desired product with the bluesy single "Comin' Home Baby," cut in September 1962, which reached the Top 40 on both sides of the Atlantic and earned Tormé his first two Grammy nominations (Best Solo Performance, Male, and Best Rhythm & Blues Recording), though he disliked the track. Atlantic quickly issued a Comin' Home Baby! LP, which failed to chart.
In spring 1963 Tormé agreed to serve as musical advisor for the upcoming television series The Judy Garland Show. He supplied arrangements and special material for the variety program, which aired twenty-six hour-long episodes from Sunday, September 29, 1963, until its cancellation on March 29, 1964. He later chronicled the experience in his first book, The Other Side of the Rainbow (1970). In November 1963 he paused to record the title song for the film Sunday in New York, which accompanied the credits upon its December release. That same month he completed an accompanying Atlantic LP, Mel Tormé Sings Sunday in New York & Other Songs About New York, concluding his tenure with the label.
After finishing The Judy Garland Show in winter 1964, Tormé resumed live performing as his primary activity. He signed with Columbia Records, for which he cut several singles that year, and appeared as himself in the summer release The Patsy. His first Columbia LP, That's All, was recorded in sessions during December 1964 and March 1965. He found the Columbia period even less satisfying than Atlantic, particularly when the label urged contemporary pop and rock material. The 1966 sessions for Right Now! incorporated recent hits such as "Homeward Bound," "Red Rubber Ball," and "Secret Agent Man," none of which suited his style. "Lover's Roulette" reached number ten on the Easy Listening chart in summer 1967, yet originated from his penultimate Columbia date; by year's end he had left the label.
Tormé had already appeared in another film, A Man Called Adam, in summer 1966, again playing himself, and contributed the song "All That Jazz" (unrelated to the 1975 Chicago number) to the soundtrack LP issued on Reprise. He next developed original television roles, writing and guest-starring in an episode of Run for Your Life, then adapting his 1950s Western novel Dollarhide (published under a pseudonym) into an installment of The Virginian in which he also performed. Recordings had largely become a promotional necessity rather than an artistic outlet. Early in 1968 he moved to Liberty Records and recorded A Day in the Life of Bonnie and Clyde, composing the title track while the remaining selections dated from the 1920s and 1930s. In 1969 he unexpectedly returned to Capitol yet produced what he later described as two "wonderfully forgettable" albums, A Time for Us and Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head. After these projects he remained absent from record racks for several years while maintaining an active concert schedule.
In May 1971 Tormé hosted the ABC documentary series It Was a Very Good Year, each installment devoted to a single year between 1919 and 1964; the program concluded at the end of August. He returned to television acting with a starring role in the 1974 TV movie Snowman and continued occasional acting and singing appearances on television thereafter. In September 1974, while performing at the Maisonette Room of New York's St. Regis Hotel with Al Porcino & His Orchestra, he recorded a live album that Atlantic acquired and released as Live at the Maisonette in 1975. Although he stated he never received royalties, the LP earned his third Grammy nomination, this time for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) for the "Gershwin Medley." In 1976 he finally secured a new contract with Gryphon Records and recorded Tormé! A New Album in London in June 1977. The January 1978 sessions for Together Again: For the First Time, co-billed with longtime friend drummer-bandleader Buddy Rich, actually appeared before Tormé! A New Album. The Rich collaboration brought Tormé's fourth Grammy nomination, for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, in 1978 (the category having been introduced only two years earlier), while Tormé! A New Album received his fifth nomination in the same category in 1979. A sixth nomination, again for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, followed for Mel Tormé and Friends Recorded Live at Marty's New York City, issued on Finesse Records in 1981 and peaking at number 44 on the Billboard jazz chart. Encore at Marty's appeared on Flair Records in 1982.
By the early 1980s, as traditional pop regained popularity, Tormé had emerged from an extended commercial drought and was increasingly recognized as a jazz singer, performing regularly at festivals, prestigious halls, and with symphony orchestras, in addition to annual engagements at leading clubs worldwide. In April 1982 he appeared with pianist George Shearing at the Peacock Court of San Francisco's Hotel Mark Hopkins; the concert was documented on An Evening with George Shearing & Mel Tormé, released by Concord Records. Reaching number 34 on the jazz chart, the album initiated fruitful partnerships with both Shearing and Concord. Tormé received his seventh Grammy nomination, once more for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, for 1982, and although he insisted Shearing merited equal credit, he won his first Grammy at the February 1983 ceremony. The following month the duo reconvened for the studio album Top Drawer, whose title track earned Tormé a second Grammy in February 1984. Another live Shearing set, An Evening at Charlie's, recorded in Washington, D.C., in October 1983 and released in 1984, produced his ninth nomination; a further studio pairing, An Elegant Evening, taped in May 1985, brought a tenth nomination for 1986.
In May 1986 Tormé paused the Shearing duets yet remained with Concord for Mel Tormé with Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass, which reached number 11 on the jazz chart. The Shearing collaboration resumed in August 1987 with A Vintage Year. In August 1988 he renewed his earlier association with Marty Paich, recording Reunion with a reconstituted Dek
Tormé nevertheless endures in public memory foremost as a vocalist whose path combined notable artistic accomplishment with recurrent commercial setbacks, especially on disc. The 1925 birth year, despite his early maturity, placed him alongside peers such as Tony Bennett in a generation that cherished swing and jazz yet confronted an adult market that increasingly sidelined those styles; performers therefore faced the dilemma of addressing a smaller audience with preferred material or diluting their approach for broader appeal, a pressure that intensified once the rock era began in the mid-1950s. Like Bennett and a handful of others, Tormé prevailed mainly through tenacity, yielding only when necessary while enduring lean periods until the 1980s, when a supportive label and fresh public interest in classic repertoire aligned. Unlike Bennett, he persisted with minimal sales impact as a recording artist, yet compensated by cultivating stronger rapport with jazz listeners who valued his evident affinity for the idiom and his scat prowess, exceeded only by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. In his autobiography he recalled a low period when he felt he possessed not a career but merely successive engagements; even so, his singing together with his manifold other skills ensured continuous employment.
Tormé descended from Russian Jewish immigrants who established themselves in Chicago. At the time of his birth his father operated a dry-goods store, yet both parents were musically inclined, the father as a singer and the mother as a pianist. Tormé displayed his own gifts extraordinarily early; his mother reported that he delivered a complete song at ten months. By age four he sang along with radio broadcasts, displaying particular enthusiasm for the Coon-Sanders Orchestra's remote from the Blackhawk Hotel, prompting his parents to take him to hear the ensemble on a Monday evening. That encounter initiated his professional life. Bandleaders Joe Sanders and Carlton Coon recognized his talent and featured him as a novelty attraction for nearly six months, after which additional band engagements followed.
As a youngster Tormé appeared with local vaudeville companies and began studying drums. In 1934 he won a Chicago World's Fair contest for aspiring child radio performers, leading to a string of dramatic roles on Chicago-originating broadcasts that continued until his voice changed in his early teens. Concurrently he kept singing and started composing original material. While enrolled at Hyde Park High School he performed in student ensembles. In 1940, at fifteen, he auditioned the song "Lament to Love" that he had written for bandleader Harry James, also playing drums during the hearing. James initially offered him a spot in the band but ultimately judged him too young; nevertheless James recorded the tune for Columbia Records, where it reached number ten for one week in August 1941. That success brought Tormé to the attention of Ben Pollack, who in 1942 assembled an orchestra fronted by comedian Chico Marx of the Marx Brothers amid widespread military inductions for World War II. Tormé's youth now proved advantageous: at sixteen he could leave high school yet remained ineligible for service, and in August 1942 he joined the group, directing its vocal ensemble and occasionally substituting on drums. He later earned a diploma from Los Angeles High School in 1944 before a brief army stint ended by medical discharge for flat feet. Two airchecks from December 20, 1942, preserve the earliest Tormé recordings; on them he sings the Irving Berlin song "Abraham" from the film Holiday Inn and executes a drum solo on "Pagliacci (Vesti la Giubba)."
While the Chico Marx band played New York, a scout from RKO Pictures auditioned Tormé, and when the orchestra disbanded in July 1943 he was cast in the musical Higher and Higher, which began filming the following month. Although derived from a Rodgers & Hart stage work, the picture substituted a score by Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson and is chiefly remembered for Frank Sinatra's screen debut. Tormé, then seventeen, had a smaller part yet sang on four numbers when the film opened in December. On Pollack's recommendation he had already begun collaborating with a vocal octet from Los Angeles City College known as the Schoolkids. He became the featured singer and arranger, and the ensemble was renamed Mel Tormé & His Mel-Tones. He also secured his sole starring film role in the Universal B-picture Pardon My Rhythm, released in May 1944, which included his compositions "Munchies" (co-written with Irving Bibo) and "Drummer Boy."
Mel Tormé & His Mel-Tones made their first records with the single "White Christmas"/"Where or When" for the small Jewel label in 1944. They also appeared on radio, most notably the comedy series Niles and Prindle that ran from January to June 1945, and performed in the Columbia film Let's Go Steady in March 1945, delivering several Tormé originals. Tormé continued independent work as well, appearing in the B-picture Junior Miss in June. Signed to major-label Decca, the group supplied background vocals on Eugenie Baird's "I Fall in Love Too Easily," which charted in October, and Bing Crosby's "Day by Day," which entered the charts in March 1946. They then moved to the new Musicraft imprint, and their featured singing on Artie Shaw & His Orchestra's version of the Irving Berlin song "I Got the Sun in the Morning" from Annie Get Your Gun produced a chart entry in July. Meanwhile Tormé maintained minor or cameo screen appearances, turning up in Warner Bros.' Janie Gets Married in June and the Cole Porter biography Night and Day in July.
Further Musicraft releases by Tormé & the Mel-Tones included "It's Dreamtime," their sole chart record in May 1947, yet by November 1946 Tormé had followed manager Carlos Gastel's advice to pursue a solo path, though he maintained occasional collaborations with the Mel-Tones for years afterward. Gastel also represented Peggy Lee and Nat King Cole. It was Cole's King Cole Trio that first recorded "The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)," written by Tormé with partner Robert Wells; sometimes known by its opening line "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire," the song reached number three for the trio in late December 1946 and went on to generate roughly 1,700 versions, according to Tormé's later estimate.
The twenty-one-year-old Tormé launched his solo career with a nightclub engagement at the Bocage in Los Angeles in early 1947, inaugurating nearly five decades of steady live work. Gastel secured an MGM film contract, and in February Tormé began shooting a supporting role in Good News, adapted from the 1930 Henderson-DeSylva-Brown musical. He departed before completion to make his New York club debut at the Copacabana in May, then remained on the East Coast for a fifteen-minute NBC radio series, The Mel Tormé Show. Later that year in Los Angeles he composed the title song for the RKO picture Magic Town, released in August.
Good News premiered in December 1947. Tormé next received a part in the Rodgers & Hart biography Words and Music, performing "Blue Moon." During summer 1948 NBC expanded The Mel Tormé Show into a half-hour situation comedy with music from Los Angeles. He also accepted another songwriting assignment, collaborating with Wells on "The County Fair" for the Disney animated feature So Dear to My Heart, released alongside Words and Music in December 1948. Gastel arranged a Capitol Records contract, the same label that housed Cole and Lee, and Tormé's second session in January 1949 produced "Careless Hands," which reached number one in April. Subsequent hits included the double-sided "Again," which peaked at number three, and "Blue Moon," which reached number twenty; "The Four Winds and the Seven Seas," recorded in May, climbed to number ten in July; the duet "The Old Master Painter" with Peggy Lee hit number nine in January 1950; and the Rodgers & Hart song "Bewitched" attained number eight in July 1950. Yet while his singles career peaked commercially, his film opportunities diminished; cast in MGM's The Duchess of Idaho with Esther Williams, he discovered upon its June 1950 release that his role had been reduced to a few lines and his sole song had been excised.
Beyond the hit singles, Tormé created an ambitious suite intended as his counterpart to Gordon Jenkins' Manhattan Tower Suite. California Suite, featuring the Mel-Tones and an orchestra under Jud Conlon (with Peggy Lee credited pseudonymously), was taped in November 1949 and issued as Tormé's and Capitol's first LP in 1950.
Tormé registered his final chart entry for a decade with "Anywhere I Wander" in November 1952. That session concluded his Capitol affiliation, leaving him label-less for a year until he signed with Decca's Coral subsidiary. Multiple singles dates followed, and on December 15, 1954, Coral captured a live performance at the Crescendo Club in Los Angeles that became the 1955 LP Gene Norman Presents Mel Tormé "Live" at the Crescendo, the first of numerous concert albums. He then moved to the jazz-oriented Bethlehem label, beginning with the ballad collection It's a Blue World, recorded in August 1955. Subsequent projects included the initial of many collaborations with pianist-arranger Marty Paich, Mel Tormé and the Marty Paich Dek-Tette, taped in January 1956, and a studio-cast Porgy and Bess in which Tormé portrayed Porgy opposite Frances Faye, recorded in May.
Tormé began extending his touring reach abroad, appearing in Australia in fall 1955; the following spring the Rodgers & Hart song "Mountain Greenery" from the Coral live album was issued as a single in the U.K., entering the Top Ten in July ahead of his first European visit. Back in Los Angeles in November he recorded Mel Tormé Sings Fred Astaire with Marty Paich, and on February 22, 1957, returned to the Crescendo for another live set, released under the similar title Gene Norman Presents Mel Tormé at the Crescendo. The next month Bethlehem added to catalog confusion by having Tormé re-record California Suite. The label was experiencing financial difficulties; after one additional Tormé LP, Songs for Any Taste (assembled from remaining Crescendo material), Bethlehem ceased operations. During a U.K. visit in summer 1957 Tormé recorded Tormé Meets the British for Philips, aimed at his British audience. In the U.S. that November he signed with the small Tops label for Prelude to a Kiss, an album later reissued repeatedly under varying titles.
On February 14, 1957, Tormé took a non-singing acting part in the live television drama The Comedian on Playhouse 90. The appearance revived his screen career, leading to a series of straight acting roles in generally modest 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 activity increased in 1958 when impresario Norman Granz signed him to the jazz-focused Verve label, home to peers such as Ella Fitzgerald. The association yielded eight albums over 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 releases received favorable jazz-community notice without achieving substantial sales. By the early 1960s Verve had become a subsidiary of a larger corporation, prompting Tormé to accept an offer from the Ertegun brothers, Ahmet and Nesuhi, at Atlantic Records.
Atlantic, however, steered Tormé toward more pop-oriented material. His first Atlantic project, the live album Mel Tormé at the Red Hill recorded in March 1962, reflected his own inclinations, yet the label obtained its desired product with the bluesy single "Comin' Home Baby," cut in September 1962, which reached the Top 40 on both sides of the Atlantic and earned Tormé his first two Grammy nominations (Best Solo Performance, Male, and Best Rhythm & Blues Recording), though he disliked the track. Atlantic quickly issued a Comin' Home Baby! LP, which failed to chart.
In spring 1963 Tormé agreed to serve as musical advisor for the upcoming television series The Judy Garland Show. He supplied arrangements and special material for the variety program, which aired twenty-six hour-long episodes from Sunday, September 29, 1963, until its cancellation on March 29, 1964. He later chronicled the experience in his first book, The Other Side of the Rainbow (1970). In November 1963 he paused to record the title song for the film Sunday in New York, which accompanied the credits upon its December release. That same month he completed an accompanying Atlantic LP, Mel Tormé Sings Sunday in New York & Other Songs About New York, concluding his tenure with the label.
After finishing The Judy Garland Show in winter 1964, Tormé resumed live performing as his primary activity. He signed with Columbia Records, for which he cut several singles that year, and appeared as himself in the summer release The Patsy. His first Columbia LP, That's All, was recorded in sessions during December 1964 and March 1965. He found the Columbia period even less satisfying than Atlantic, particularly when the label urged contemporary pop and rock material. The 1966 sessions for Right Now! incorporated recent hits such as "Homeward Bound," "Red Rubber Ball," and "Secret Agent Man," none of which suited his style. "Lover's Roulette" reached number ten on the Easy Listening chart in summer 1967, yet originated from his penultimate Columbia date; by year's end he had left the label.
Tormé had already appeared in another film, A Man Called Adam, in summer 1966, again playing himself, and contributed the song "All That Jazz" (unrelated to the 1975 Chicago number) to the soundtrack LP issued on Reprise. He next developed original television roles, writing and guest-starring in an episode of Run for Your Life, then adapting his 1950s Western novel Dollarhide (published under a pseudonym) into an installment of The Virginian in which he also performed. Recordings had largely become a promotional necessity rather than an artistic outlet. Early in 1968 he moved to Liberty Records and recorded A Day in the Life of Bonnie and Clyde, composing the title track while the remaining selections dated from the 1920s and 1930s. In 1969 he unexpectedly returned to Capitol yet produced what he later described as two "wonderfully forgettable" albums, A Time for Us and Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head. After these projects he remained absent from record racks for several years while maintaining an active concert schedule.
In May 1971 Tormé hosted the ABC documentary series It Was a Very Good Year, each installment devoted to a single year between 1919 and 1964; the program concluded at the end of August. He returned to television acting with a starring role in the 1974 TV movie Snowman and continued occasional acting and singing appearances on television thereafter. In September 1974, while performing at the Maisonette Room of New York's St. Regis Hotel with Al Porcino & His Orchestra, he recorded a live album that Atlantic acquired and released as Live at the Maisonette in 1975. Although he stated he never received royalties, the LP earned his third Grammy nomination, this time for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) for the "Gershwin Medley." In 1976 he finally secured a new contract with Gryphon Records and recorded Tormé! A New Album in London in June 1977. The January 1978 sessions for Together Again: For the First Time, co-billed with longtime friend drummer-bandleader Buddy Rich, actually appeared before Tormé! A New Album. The Rich collaboration brought Tormé's fourth Grammy nomination, for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, in 1978 (the category having been introduced only two years earlier), while Tormé! A New Album received his fifth nomination in the same category in 1979. A sixth nomination, again for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, followed for Mel Tormé and Friends Recorded Live at Marty's New York City, issued on Finesse Records in 1981 and peaking at number 44 on the Billboard jazz chart. Encore at Marty's appeared on Flair Records in 1982.
By the early 1980s, as traditional pop regained popularity, Tormé had emerged from an extended commercial drought and was increasingly recognized as a jazz singer, performing regularly at festivals, prestigious halls, and with symphony orchestras, in addition to annual engagements at leading clubs worldwide. In April 1982 he appeared with pianist George Shearing at the Peacock Court of San Francisco's Hotel Mark Hopkins; the concert was documented on An Evening with George Shearing & Mel Tormé, released by Concord Records. Reaching number 34 on the jazz chart, the album initiated fruitful partnerships with both Shearing and Concord. Tormé received his seventh Grammy nomination, once more for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, for 1982, and although he insisted Shearing merited equal credit, he won his first Grammy at the February 1983 ceremony. The following month the duo reconvened for the studio album Top Drawer, whose title track earned Tormé a second Grammy in February 1984. Another live Shearing set, An Evening at Charlie's, recorded in Washington, D.C., in October 1983 and released in 1984, produced his ninth nomination; a further studio pairing, An Elegant Evening, taped in May 1985, brought a tenth nomination for 1986.
In May 1986 Tormé paused the Shearing duets yet remained with Concord for Mel Tormé with Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass, which reached number 11 on the jazz chart. The Shearing collaboration resumed in August 1987 with A Vintage Year. In August 1988 he renewed his earlier association with Marty Paich, recording Reunion with a reconstituted Dek
Albums
Mel Torme with Chris Gunning Orchestra
2006
The Classic Concert Live
2005
Velvet & Brass
1995
Nothing Without You
1992
A Vintage Year
1988
Mel Tormé, Rob McConnell And The Boss Brass
1986
Together Again for the First Time
1978
Broadway, Right Now!
1961
Live
