Artist: Mel Torme
Album: Cocktail Hour
Genre: Vocal Jazz
Label: Allegro
Released: 1999
Quality: FLAC (tracks+.cue)
Tracklist:
- CD 1:
- What Is This Thing Called Love (3:01)
- Little White Lies (3:02)
- Get Out of Town (3:15)
- A Little Kiss Each Morning (2:56)
- I Cover the Waterfront (4:29)
- A Cottage for Sale (3:05)
- The Best Things in Life Are Free (2:53)
- Gone with the Wind (2:58)
- But Beautiful (2:45)
- You're Driving Me Crazy (3:10)
- Willow Road (2:59)
- Try a Little Tenderness (3:07)
- A Foggy Day (2:54)
- Until the Real Thing Comes Along (2:52)
- CD 2:
- I Got the Sun in the Morning (2:59)
- Night and Day (2:42)
- Fine and Dandy (3:07)
- Careless Hands (3:15)
- I Can't Give You Anything But Love (3:04)
- Three Little Words (2:44)
- The Day You Came Along (2:46)
- Again (3:11)
- Love, You Funny Thing (3:04)
- Blue Moon (3:11)
- You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me (3:06)
- Born to Be Blue (2:38)
- A Stranger in Town (2:56)
- It's Easy to Remember (2:58)
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Torme's performances are superb, but this two-disc compilation has no track information whatsoever -- no composer or musician credits, no session dates, nothing. The package is part of a generic Allegro series; other "cocktail hour" discs feature the likes of Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and Dinah Shore, with uniformly ugly cover art. So this is anything but a classic Torme title, although many of the individual tracks are classics. The recordings are clearly old -- probably from the '40s or '50s -- although the sound is quite good. A handful of tracks feature background vocalists singing close harmonies, but Torme is alone in the spotlight for the most part. There's a glockenspiel or celeste on quite a few songs, which becomes irritating, but there are some excellent clarinet and guitar performances -- uncredited, of course. Torme's scat vocal on "Night and Day" is not to be missed. For a quick and easy sampling of Torme's style, this compilation will suffice, but serious fans would do better to seek out the original recordings.
Review by David R. Adler