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
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.
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.
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.
There are musicians in my business who are very dour people, who are angry for one reason or another, who are malcontents or whatever.
As regards my feelings about drummers - there's Buddy Rich, and then there's everybody else.
Because Chicago was to radio what Hollywood was to films and Broadway was to the theatre: it was the hub of radio.
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.
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.
Buddy Rich is one of a kind; he's a genius, and that's all there is to it.
It may sound a bit like an army barracks, but the truth of the matter is: there must be some time laid aside for arranging, time for working on either a book or an article - I've written two articles in the last four months for the New York Times book review section.
As a singer, the biggest joy I have are the arrangements.
Right now, my career is in three directions: as a performer, as an arranger, as an author - and I don't give any one of them true precedent, or true top marks, as opposed to the other two.
I was a singer professionally when I was four years old, and I did not really begin to play any instrument - the first one, of course, was drums - till I was about nine years old.
I hadn't been a recording artist all that long when albums came on the scene, and I was one of the first singers to point the way to how varied an album's contents could be.