Search - Mel Torme :: Cocktail Hour: Mel Torme

The man whose voice earned him the nickname "Velvet Fog" had a long and productive career, not only as a consummate jazz crooner, but as writer and arranger as well. Much of the material featured on this budget-priced two-CD set is from Torme's earlier period, specifically the 1940s and early '50s. His voice is smooth and flexible, containing more honey than fog and has a boyish, romantic quality. Couple that with the lush strings and brassy, Vegas-like backgrounds, and you have the perfect prescription for those after-work blahs. Torme's way with "Little White Lies" and "You're Driving Me Crazy" is insouciantly sassy, but he shifts gears easily to heartfelt yearning on "Blue Moon" and "Born to Be Blue" and then to some upbeat, finger-snapping on "Three Little Words." Plus, the album contains his No. 1 hit from 1949, "Careless Hands." Much of the second disc finds Mel in a mellow mood--need we suggest, say, champagne on ice? As with the other Cocktail Hour sets, this one comes with an abundance of music but a paucity of information about it. The set lets the music do the talking. --Wally Shoup