Mel Torme
Mel Torme
Melvin Howard Tormé, nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, best known as a singer of jazz standards. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, drummer, and actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books. He composed the music for the classic holiday song "The Christmas Song"and co-wrote the lyrics with Bob Wells...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJazz Singer
Date of Birth13 September 1925
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
There isn't a dearth of it, but I will confess that it's harder for me to find songs on which I'm willing to invest anything from ten to fifteen hours writing an arrangement than it was in times past.
There are musicians in my business who are very dour people, who are angry for one reason or another, who are malcontents or whatever.
So I'm sorry, I'm going to continue to talk to the people, because I do believe that if they get to know you and what you are as a human being, they can more appreciate what you are as a performer.
Whereas a musician is luckier; a lot of times, the reflection of what he is as a human being is not even remotely carried through in what he plays.
I don't want to compete with - I want to be very careful how I say this - the majority of amateurs who weekly break into the business.
As regards my feelings about drummers - there's Buddy Rich, and then there's everybody else.
As Buddy Rich, for instance, broke into the business at the age of three, I think it was, on drums, so indeed did I break into the business at the age of four as a singer.
Because Chicago was to radio what Hollywood was to films and Broadway was to the theatre: it was the hub of radio.
I got into radio when I was eight, and I was one of the busiest child dramatic actors in America.
I would be a liar if I said it wouldn't be lovely and soothing - that's the word - to have a hit single or a hit album.
But, in fairness to them, too, the popular song per se is really a pretty shallow medium to perform in.
Since the advent of Benny Goodman, there have been too few clarinetists to fill the void that Goodman left. Ken Peplowski is most certainly one of those few. The man is magic.
Whenever I did a good performance, my Dad and my uncles, who were rabid movie fans, took me to the movies. There began my underlying love affair with film.
To me, nostalgia is nothing more than a mindless plundering of the past for the commonplace.