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Ed.
Note: Mel Tormé
passed away in 1999, leaving Tony Bennett and Keely Smith as the last
great swingin' crooners in our midst. Although this story predicts the
demise of the lounge music fad, it was actually replaced with the even
more faddish big band/swing kids revival. While such trends are often
scoffed at, they nevertheless introduce younger generations to timeless
music they might otherwise never have heard. So even as the zoot suits
are sold back to the vintage clothing shops, perhaps the CDs will stay
in the collections and artists like the late Tormé will live on.
*
* *
Hey,
how’s your drink? You’re beautiful, baby–I really mean
that. I’d like to thank each and every one of you; I can’t tell
you how much your applause means to me. How about these waitresses, hmm?
And the service is pretty good too. Heh-heh. Now the boys are gonna back
me up on a little tune that’ll take you waaay back ...
What
the hell happened last year? Lounge music reared its brilliantined mug
and wailed from coast to coast. Retro-lounge bands, composed of performers
young and old, were packing clubs so tight you couldn’t get a swizzle
stick ’twixt the ’tini drinkers. All of a sudden, if your band
didn’t have a conga player or if your CD stash didn’t have some
Dino, you were Four Corners-ville, L-7, Square City, absolutely off the
map to Nowhere!
Your
music media (and others inclined to analyze pop culture) explained away
the Cocktail Nation with various and odious orations. The music–as
made by bands like Combustible Edison, Love Jones, and others–was
an alternative to alternative. It was a chance for youth to mock its elders.
It was yin to the yang of punk, and bound to turn up sooner or later.
That’s all the bunk, baby. Don’t you believe it.
Mel
Tormé, a.k.a. The Velvet Fog, has sold records to every generation
of heps and would-be-hips for the last five decades. Tormé’s
unflagging popularity suggests that the juice behind the trend was a tad
more ethereal, logic of a higher plane that sometimes comes down to within
reach of the popsters: good music is good music.
And
good music will always be in style.
One Night
Only
Tormé,
like most of the jazz and pop vocalists whose styles predate rock 'n'
roll, was born of the big band era. He cut his chops, both as a drummer
and a crooner, with bands ranging from Chico Marx and the Revellis to
Woody Herman and his Thundering Herd.
Tormé
was first called up on stage to sing when he was four years old, in 1929.
His family was dining at the Blackhawk in Chicago, listening to the Coon-Sanders
Orchestra. The bandleaders noticed that little Melvin just couldn’t
sit still during their performance, and that he was unusually familiar
with their repertoire. He sang "You’re Driving Me Crazy"
and became a regular feature of that band’s act. Harry James’
recording of "Lament to Love," a song that Tormé penned
when he was 15, anchored itself on the Hit Parade while he was 16.
After
World War II, the cost of maintaining a traveling band became more than
the market would bear. The personality of an individual showman–your
Tormé, Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald–outweighed the impact and
attraction of any collective talent or sound.
It
became common to book musicians and singers separately. And since a promoter
no longer needed to "buy" an entire 20- to 40-piece band, the cost of
talent could now be covered by booking smaller rooms: The Lounges. A collector
of sports cars and a small plane pilot, Tormé could stop in crossroads
towns, teach his arrangements to pick-up bands in the afternoon, swing
the night away, and be on his way home or to the next gig after breakfast.
A Sentimental
Journey
"I
must admit I miss those days," says Tormé. "I miss the
music. I think that the greatest period this country ever enjoyed musically
was the big band era. When you compare big band to rap and hip-hop and
the rest of the garbage you hear these days, there really is no comparison."
Well,
you can compare them. But it’s kind of like apples and oranges, or
Yugos and Jaguars. While the urban groove is a timely sound, certainly,
swing and its vocal progeny have proven to be timeless.
The
passing of time has stratified the music that sprang from that era. Certain
composers, arrangers, and performers, like Jimmie Lunceford and Pee Wee
Russell, have become more important in retrospect than they were during
their careers. The music of Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman,
Glenn Miller, Count Basie, and others persists. Still others, popular
in their day, have been all but forgotten.
As
far as vocalists are concerned, Sinatra continues to record, but the greatest
affection and attention is now bestowed upon his earliest recordings with
the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey bands. Tony Bennett has caught a second
wind, a second shot at "The Good Life," as the too-hip, gray-haired
darling of the MTV generation. Tormé swung with the years and over
the fads. Between his perfect pipes and versatility, he never wanted for
work or a record market. He’s one of a handful of traditional pop
vocalists whose career was unscarred by the onslaught of rock idols during
the ’50s.
For
a savvy, industry-smart insider like Tormé, one might expect the
buying power of the youth market to offer some small temptation. Will
there be a "Tormé Unplugged" session? "The Velvet
Fog Duets," with phoned in vocals from Sinead O’Connor or KRS-1?
Don’t hold your breath.
"It’s
really not challenging at all to resist that market," Tormé
says. "It’s just something you live with. I can’t really
see myself ever doing that kind of music. The only thing that I’m
really mired in–that I’m steeped in–are the old songs and
the swing style. And there is genuinely a market for it. It’s not
as big as the ‘kid’ market. Nonetheless, there are people out
there just slavering to hear this kind of music.
"Normally,
my shows are just sold to the roof. I think that’s a very good indication
of what people want to hear."
Frank
and Tony have made comebacks into the youth market because they’ve
been well marketed. The music industry has done what it’s supposed
to do, and convinced music buyers that these guys are cool. Tormé,
to his credit, has also become popular with listeners 40 years his junior,
but for nearly the opposite reason. Tormé and his music were offered
as prime-time examples of why Harry Anderson’s Night Court
character was old-fashioned and, well, a little square.
"Since
I started doing those guest shots on Night Court," Tormé muses
aloud, "I look out and I see a tremendous number of young people
coming to my concerts. A lot of it is curiosity, of course, but they come
and seem to enjoy what they hear. Then, they come again next time around.
It’s a nice situation."
Ask
Tormé if any ’90s singers promise the kind of future his talent
did some 50 years and 50 albums ago, and his answer isn’t surprising.
Nobody with a gee-tar comes immediately to mind.
"The
only person who might be around in another 20 years is Harry Connick,
Jr.," says Tormé after a pause and a sigh. "But I’m
going to level with you. The jury is still out on Harry Connick, Jr. He’s
a big success right now, and I think that’s wonderful. We’ll
see whether or not he has ‘legs.’"
A World That Swings
With
regard to longevity, Tormé began his career with a leg up on his
big band contemporaries. He’s one of the youngest and healthiest
members of his musical generation. By being younger than other ground
breakers in his field, he’s had the advantage of countless lessons
on how to make swell music.
"When
we come, we’re going to have a quintet, with a rhythm section, a
wonderful clarinet player and a wonderful vibraphone player. With me added,
it’s sort of like the Benny Goodman sextet. That’s what we emulate
when we play."
Tormé’s
1993 Sing, Sing, Sing (Concord) showed that Goodman’s music
wraps around Tormé’s style and voice like a gold lamé
cummerbund. A lot of singers can work with a band, but few can become
part of the band, contributing a voice as an unintrusive and vital instrument
the way Tormé does. Rather than simply pasting lyrics over a combo
backdrop, Tormé plays his vocal cords the same way Goodman worked
his stick. And if Tormé’s voice has changed over 50 years,
it’s become easier to listen to. The youthful exuberance is still
there, and his luscious tone is still as smooth and sweet as the foam
on top of a well-poured Moscow Mule.
The
lounge revival came and has just about gone–and like a bunch of other
trends during Tormé’s career, left him untouched. (Though
Memphis counter-culture kingpin Alex Chilton turned in a nifty version
of Tormé’s "The Christmas Song" on his ’94
torch tune album Clichés.) Tormé has remained a force
in music by sticking to the tack that, whether it’s trendy or not,
there simply is no substitute for style. Good music, the good song, will
always have their place.
"It
just follows," says The Fog, "as the day, the night."
First
Published: February 9, 1995 •Metro
Pulse
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