Mel Torme was a singer, songwriter and arranger who was prominent throughout the post-war decades, enjoying chart hits into the 1960s, but who came to the fore in his late teens during the early as leader of the vocal group The Mel-Tones, having been an entertainer since his childhood. Born in 1925, he started singing professionally at the age of 4, acted on radio, was in the Chico Marx Band in 1942 and appeared in Frank Sinatra’s first film in 1943. He formed the Mel-Tones the following year, modelled on the Pied Pipers and with future star bandleader Les Baxter as a member. This 61-track 3-CD set comprises Torme’s recordings for Decca leading the Mel-Tones as they recorded both under their own name and with artists like Bing Crosby and Eugenie Baird and on Musicraft as featured artists with Artie Shaw’s orchestra, and in their own right with Sonny Burke’s orchestra, before Torme began recording solo with Shaw and Burke, and then with the orchestras of Walter Gross and Hal Mooney as well as the Page Cavanaugh Trio. During this time he wrote “The Christmas Song”, a big 1946 hit for Nat King Cole, but did not record it himself. The anthology includes the large majority of the recordings he made during this era before he was even 23 years old, and it demonstrates the maturity and breadth of the talent which made him one of the classiest vocalists of his generation.
