Mel Tormé was a jazz-oriented pop singer who worked at his craft steadily from the '40s to the '90s, primarily in nightclubs and concert halls. In his 1988 autobiography, It Wasn't All Velvet (its title a reference to his nickname, "The Velvet Fog," bestowed upon him by a disc jockey in the '40s to describe his husky, wide-ranging voice), he mentioned a wish that he had been born ten years earlier, that is, in 1915 rather than 1925. If he had had his wish, Tormé would have been an exact contemporary of Frank Sinatra, and like Sinatra, he might have had a full-fledged career as a big-band singer. In fact, given the breadth of his talents, he might have been a bandleader, since in addition to singing, he was also a drummer good enough to have gotten offers to go on the road as early as his teens, a songwriter responsible for one of the perennial Christmas standards, and an arranger who wrote the charts for much of the music he performed. Amazingly, this is still only a partial list of his accomplishments, which also included acting in more than a dozen feature films and on radio and television; hosting radio and TV shows; and writing television dramas, numerous articles for periodicals including Down Beat and The New York Times, and six published books of fiction, biography, and music criticism.
CD 1
01. You're Driving Me Crazy [3:07]
02. I'm Yours [3:01]
03. Who Cares What People Say [2:55]
04. Love Is the Sweetest Thing [3:04]
05. My Baby Just Cares for Me [2:37]
06. I Can't Give You Anything But Love [3:00]
07. Love You Funny Thing [2:58]
08. If I Had a Girl Like You [2:42]
09. Little White Lies [2:57]
10. California Suite [29:49]
CD 2
01. Mel Torme; Meltones / I Got the Sun in the Morning [3:00]
02. Mel Torme; Meltones / What Is This Thing Called Love [3:00]
03. Born to Be Blue [2:39]
04. Night and Day [2:43]
05. Until the Real Thing Comes Along [2:55]
06. Guilty [3:07]
07. A Little Kiss Each Morning [2:55]
08. It Happened in Monterey [2:51]
09. You're Driving Me Crazy [3:08]
10. But Beautiful [2:43]
11. Gone with the Wind [2:57]
12. Ballerina [3:12]
13. Makin' Whoopee [2:53]
14. I Cover the Waterfront [4:27]
15. A Foggy Day [2:54]
16. Mel Torme; Peggy Lee / The Old Master Painter [2:49]
17. Lullaby of the Leaves [2:22]
18. You're a Heavenly Thing [2:31]
19. Recipe for Romance [2:30]
CD 3
01. Mel Torme; Meltones / How High the Moon [2:21]
02. Three Little Words [2:00]
03. Love Me Or Leave Me [1:46]
04. Careless Hands [3:15]
05. Blue Moon [3:13]
06. Again [3:11]
07. The Four Winds and the Seven Seas [3:05]
08. Mel Torme; Meltones / Got the Gate on the Golden Gate [3:34]
09. Cross Your Heart [2:39]
10. Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered [3:20]
11. Stompin' At the Savoy [2:34]
12. Oh You Beautiful Doll [2:18]
13. You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me [3:06]
14. It's Too Late Now [3:13]
15. Do Do Do [2:28]
16. Sonny Boy [2:45]
17. I Hadn't Anyone Till You [3:06]
18. Three Little Words [47:54]
CD 4
01. All of You [2:49]
02. My Rosemarie [2:33]
03. The Anything Can Happen Mambo [2:45]
04. Blue Moon [2:37]
05. You're Driving Me Crazy [2:14]
06. Blue Skies [2:16]
07. Rose O'day [2:21]
08. That Old Black Magic [3:13]
09. Country Fair [5:05]
10. The Hut-Sut Song [2:25]
11. Cement Mixer [2:24]
12. Skylark [3:07]
13. I Love Each Move You Make [2:43]
14. I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling [2:51]
15. Bernie's Tune [2:58]
16. Goody Goody [2:31]
17. Mountain Greenery [2:20]
18. Hold Tight, Hold Tight [2:36]
19. Spellbound [2:28]
20. My Rosemarie [52:17]
