Jazz Casual: A Pair of Singers

Mel Torme | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 14, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 1962
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Koch Records
• ASIN: B000059RTU
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #547,439 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. We've Got A World That Swings - Mel Torme

2. Interview - Mel Torme

3. Comin' Home Baby - Mel Torme

4. Mel Speaks - Mel Torme

5. Sidney's Soliloquy - Mel Torme

6. Mel Speaks - Mel Torme

7. Dat Dere - Mel Torme

8. Mel Speaks - Mel Torme

9. When Sunny Gets Blue - Mel Torme

10. Mel Speaks - Mel Torme

11. Quiet Nights - Mel Torme

12. Route 66 - Mel Torme

13. I'm Gonna Lock My Heart And Throw Away The Key - Carmen McRae

14. Interview - Carmen McRae

15. Trouble Is A Man - Carmen McRae

16. Carmen With Norman Simmons - Carmen McRae

17. If You Never Fall In Love With Me - Carmen McRae

18. Carmen With Norman Simmons - Carmen McRae

19. 'Round Midnight - Carmen McRae

20. Carmen With Norman Simmons - Carmen McRae

See all 23 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What is jazz singing, anyway?, April 11, 2002

By 

Joe Mama (marin county CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jazz Casual: A Pair of Singers (Audio CD)

I'm too young to remember the TV show JAZZ CASUAL, but I'm a huge fan of Mel Tormé's 50s and 60s records. That said, I bought this CD without hearing it previously. Although the sound quality is weak, Mel Tormé is on the money, and celebrated Jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason (whom both Tormé and McRae genuinely seemed to like) asks all the right questions.

Vocally, Tormé was arguably at his best in those days. The opening number is an infectious and catchy tune called "I've Got a World that Swings." I'm fairly well-versed on Tormé's records from this period, and I don't think this song appears on any of his other albums. Other gems include an incredible version of "When Sunny Gets Blue" and a beautiful rendering of Jobim's "Quiet Nights (of Quiet Stars) on which Tormé plays Ukelele.

If you're a real die-hard, liner-note reading music fan, you'll love the interviews between songs. After the first song, Gleason cuts right to the chase and asks Tormé if he considers himself a jazz singer. Tormé, perhaps concerned about what other jazz artists might think, tentatively accepts the title. Later, Gleason asks Tormé to define jazz singing as opposed to good pop singing. This is where it really gets interesting. As masterful and facile as Tormé was with his voice--and his words--he really struggles to define the expression. Later, he is wonderfully candid in expressing who of his contemporaries in the business he feels qualify as bona-fide jazz singers.

As for Carmen McRae, I was unfamiliar with her music before hearing this disc (although she was one of the few singers cited by Tormé as a legitimate jazz singer!). I personally don't like her voice as much as Mel Tormé's, but she was obviously the real deal. As for her interviews, it's fascinating to compare her responses to the same questions with Tormé's.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Collector's dream!, August 21, 2004

By 

E. Macomber "gmonet" (New Bern, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jazz Casual: A Pair of Singers (Audio CD)

Ralph Gleason has allowed to much politics into his epistles and not enough history of jazz lately. Sad, this is a collectors's dream. Two of the greats Torme' and McCrea while not actually together, are quite together musically. They approach the songs quite differently from their later, more engineered and "choreogrpahed" stuff. Listen to a copy of the original Rhapsody in Blue compared to what Telarc did to it and you'll know what I mean. "We've Got A World That Swings" is perhaps my most favorite. This tune came from a Jerry Lewis movie called the "Nutty Professor." I gotta say the best recorded version I have of this tune is the 4 Freshmen from a Liberty disc they made in the early 60's. But what I can tell you, it is almost extinct,therfore quite valuable to a collector of 20th Century jazz. One lsten to Torme' and you'll want this archival disc..and it probably won't be there. Sad!