Check, originally signed by Mel Torme autograph, singer jazz, collect signature

Check personally signed by Mel Torne!

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Melvin Howard "Mel" Tormé (September 13, 1925 in Chicago, Illinois; June 5, 1999 in Los Angeles, California) was an American jazz and pop singer who also worked as a drummer, composer, arranger, author, and actor. Mel Tormé, the son of Russian immigrants, sang with the Coon-Sanders Orchestra for several months at the age of 4. Like his colleagues Mickey Rooney and Sammy Davis Jr., he worked as a child star in radio series, having grown up in an active artistic environment. At the age of seven, he switched to drums before trying his hand at singing again. He recorded his first record with Harry James at the age of 15. In 1942, Ben Pollack brought him into the Chico Marx Orchestra. Tormé made his film acting debut in 1943 alongside Frank Sinatra in the film Higher and Higher. Shortly before his draft into the US Army, and again in 1947, he formed the vocal group Mel-Tones with Les Baxter and Ginny O'Connor. His first recordings were made for Jewell and Decca Records, and after the Second World War for Musicraft Records, sometimes accompanied by Artie Shaw's orchestra. Carlos Gastel, who had already promoted the careers of Nat King Cole and Peggy Lee, brought him to Capitol Records and MGM, who promoted him as a pop star. But after a few years, Tormé decided to work with smaller labels and return to jazz. Albums such as Musical Sounds Are the Best Songs for Coral in 1954 and It's a Blue World on Bethlehem followed. In the mid-1950s he played with Marty Paich in the band Mel Tormé with the Marty Paich Dektette. They recorded four albums together, including Mel Tormé Sings Fred Astaire (Bethlehem, 1956) and Verve Tormé (1958), Back in Town (1959) and, as the climax and reunion of the Mel-Tones, Mel Tormé Swings Shubert Alley, in which Paich and Tormé worked with Broadway songs such as Comden/Green's "Just in Time", "Too Darn Hot", Harold Arlen's "A Sleepin' Bee" and Frank Loesser's "Once in Love with Amy". Their backing musicians included Art Pepper, Frank Rosolino, Red Callender and Mel Lewis. In 1963 and 1964 Tormé worked as a writer for the Judy Garland Show, in which he also appeared. He later processed his experiences in the book The Other Side of the Rainbow. In the 1960s, further productions with studio orchestras were made for Atlantic and Columbia, conducted by artists such as Shorty Rogers and Al Porcino. In the late 1970s, Tormé began an intensive collaboration with pianist George Shearing and his band; from this time on, he also wrote his own arrangements. In the 1980s, a number of albums were released for Concord Jazz, including with the Rob McConnell Big Band. In 1988, he recorded the reunion album with West Coast musicians such as Bob Enevoldsen, Jack Sheldon, and Pete Jolly. In the 1990s, he worked with Cleo Laine (Nothing Without You) and Ken Peplowski (Sing, Sing; Sing); his last album was Velvet and Brass, recorded for Concord in July 1995. In August 1996, Mel Tormé was supposed to open the Newport Jazz Festival with George Shearing. But the concert had to be canceled at the last minute: Tormé had suffered a stroke. He would never recover from it, and as a result, the singer was unable to perform live again. Mel Tormé died on June 5, 1999, as a result of another stroke.