Mel Torme Comin' Home Baby! And Other Hits CD

This brief compilation (it just barely creeps over 30 minutes in length) is way too short to do justice to this multi-talented artist. Aside from being a gifted jazz singer (he was forced to do a lot of pop material throughout his career to survive), Mel Tormé was also an actor, a solid songwriter, an arranger (he handled the chart arrangements for most of his recordings), a credible drummer, and a more than competent author, but it is as a singer that he will always be remembered. This set includes his only U.S. Top 40 single, the bluesy "Coming Home Baby" from 1962, and the Rodgers & Hart tune "Mountain Greenery," which Tormé took into the Top Ten in the U.K. in 1956, but little else here could truthfully be called the best of Tormé. This set just doesn't do him justice, even as an introduction. ~ Steve Leggett

Aside from being a gifted jazz singer (he was forced to do a lot of pop material throughout his career to survive), Mel Torme was also an actor, a solid songwriter, an arranger (he handled the chart arrangements for most of his recordings), a credible drummer, and a more than competent author, but it is as a singer that he will always be remembered. This brief set includes his only U.S. Top 40 single, the bluesy "Coming Home Baby" from 1962, and the Rodgers and Hart tune "Mountain Greenery," which Torme took into the Top Ten in the U.K. ~ Steve Leggett

Liner Note Author: Rocky Petralia.

label: RHINO release date: 23 June 1998Mojo (Publisher) (2/01, p.102) - "...A valuable, long unavailable 1962 album....sandwiching some brilliantly sharp readings of jazz themes between despised (by him) R&B novelties..."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.122) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[D]elivered to inch-perfect jazz-pizzazz perfection by a singer at the height of his cool-school powers."