Customer Reviews

Mel Torme Collection 1944-1985

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This set is very well put together. The book walks through Mel's career from when he was a child onward and has many great color and b&w photos. The recording quality is excellent. It contains many tracks that are unavailable elsewhere (like Mel's nightclub version of the theme from "Arthur"). It also has great cuts from "Mel Torme In Hollywood" -- live at the old Crecendo Club. Sound quality is very good even on these live cuts. Nice loungy feel. This set avoids some of the dopey stuff Mel did for Capitol records in the 60's (like remakes of Rock songs to try to sound 'hip') --- Mel hated having to do that stuff. This set sticks to classic Torme stuff (Chiristmas Song, etc.). I only wish there were more cuts where he scatted. He and Ella are known as the most reknowned scat singers of our time but you don't get much of a feel for that on this set.

There's only one cut really we could have done without -- "Zaz Turned Blue." There's a bizzare story behind that number that's detailed in the booklet and it's kind of a goofy tune-- still Mel's voice is as velveteen as ever on it.

Real Torme fans should own this set.

If you adore the Great American Songbook get this collection.

In my opinion, Mr. Torme remains almost peerless interpreting 40s-80s jazz/pop standards with songwriter sensitivity and empathy.

The Boxset swings hard and fast, check out, "It Don't Mean A Thing", the classic "Stangers in the Night", and amazing live version of, "The Best Is Yet To Come"

Gossamer wings or not, Mel Tormé could sing. He had a voice and he had musicianship. He was an excellent jazz drummer also. Did you know that? And once in a while he could be very funny, usually at cabaret settings. He was also the victim of his times and his studios. So much of his material, as you'll hear on Disc Three especially, was unworthy of his talent. So many of his recordings were swaddled and throttled by corny over-orchestrations, something you'll hear on both Disc Three and Disc Four. The best tracks in this 4-CD box are mostly on Disc Two, songs recorded in the '50s with authentic jazz musicians backing him. Mel Tormé was a JAZZ singer. It was 'meshuga' to restrict him to being a crooner, yet even so he was the only crooner worth a plugged nickel. There's too much of his over-arranged crooner repertoire in the set and not enough of his hot jazz and 'scat' singing; he and Ella Fitzgerald sang some electrifying scat duets but those are not included her.

My interest in this commemorative collection was particular. I wanted to hear how his voice and his technique evolved over his career, and this collection serves that purpose excellently. Tormé was a natural baritone, judging by the open resonance of his voice on the first five or six tracks on Disc One, with the Artie Shaw Orchestra. Possibly his voice then was too 'classical' -- too operatic -- for his audience; you'll hear him thin it out, scratch it up deliberately in order to match some popular taste. You'll hear him especially stretch his tessitura upwards, until he was singing tenor and counter-tenor most of the time, and reserving his velvety lower register for special effects. He had a fantastic range, including notes that must have been "falsetto' yet emerge from his tenor range without a 'break'. Hey, in a different life, he could have been a fabulous baroque male alto, possibly as fine as Gerard Lesne! But it was his tuning that set him apart from the other crooners. His tuning was immaculate, even when singing some of the bizarre chromatic intervals of jazz and 'Broadway' music of the '40s -'60s. By the '70s and '80s, he was out-of-date, of course, except for occasions of nostalgia. Okay, he had a great career, but not as great a career as his talent would have justified.