Jazz Today: January 21, 1960 @ Los Angeles

Jan. 21, 1960 “Too Close For Comfort”
by Mel Tormé, Art Pepper, Joe Mondragon, Mel Lewis etc arranged by Marty Paich
at LA for Verve (Mel Tormé Swings Shubert Alley)

Backed by an arrangement by the legendary arranger Marty Paich for a big band, you can fully enjoy the dashing and incredibly cheerful singing voice of the great singer Mel Tormé. The album title, Shubert Alley, is another name for Broadway in Manhattan, and this album features standard songs related to musicals.

At the time, Tormé was working on albums with themes such as California, England, and Latin, and it is thought that this work appeared as part of that series.

Although it might not be immediately apparent upon first listen, behind Tormé's incredibly cheerful-sounding voice were actually skillful techniques such as scat ability, vocal dynamics, and vibrato, making him a figure highly respected even by other jazz vocalists.

And to compensate for his lack of vocal volume, it seems he even meticulously controlled the distance between his mouth and the microphone by hand. When you listen to it again with that in mind, you can tell it is a very carefully crafted vocal performance that matches the tone of the orchestral music.

His singing voice is guided by the refreshingly resonant hi-hat of master drummer Mel Lewis, heard from the upper right of the speaker, and in the middle, alto saxophonist Art Pepper, who appeared on January 19th, joins in to perform a brilliant solo, and it is pleasant how the perfectly synchronized big band unfolds without ever becoming boring until the very end.

The recording quality is also good, and it can be used as a reference track for auditioning big bands. The recording was done by Val Valentin, who worked on the masterpiece "Ella and Louis" and Oscar Peterson's "Night Train" for the same Verve label. Despite his prolific output, his name is not that well-known and there are few records, but from these high-quality works that they have in common, one can infer his considerable skill. This is also a famous work by Valentin.

The song was composed for the musical "Mr. Wonderful" starring Sammy Davis Jr. and became a standard. I searched for records, but the only information I could find was that it was recorded in LA, and unfortunately, I could not find the name of the studio.

For those interested in Sammy Davis Jr., please listen to the song introduced here.

Finally, for the work introduced on January 19th by the genius Pepper, who showed a great presence with his solo on this album, please click here.