Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
Musician, author and entertainer known for his singing and arranging.
Eight records
Gerry Mulligan and his Tentette
This would remind me of my old neighborhood. I live in Beverly Hills, California, which is adjacent to Westwood Village. And since Jerry Mulligan to me is sort of the latter-day Duke Ellington and a superb arranger and composer, I've chosen Jerry Mulligan and his Tentette and Westwood Walk.
My Robin is to the Greenwood Gone
Eastman Rochester Pops Orchestra conducted by Frederick Fennell
Well, this is a great favourite of mine. Percy Granger, the Australian composer, who is uh one of the great modernists in finding folk songs and turning them into little classics, as I say, is very close to my heart musically. And he found an old English music hall ballad called My Robin is to the Greenwood Gorn. And I feel that this would be in keeping, apropos, since I'm on a desert island with perhaps not a great amount of green.
Jimmy Lunceford and His Orchestra
Frédéric Chopin (arr. Willie Moore Jr.)
Well, this is a combination, really, of uh the love, first of all, of a great composer, Chopin. With a great jazz orchestra from America, particularly in the mid and late thirties and early 40s, Jimmy Lunceford and his orchestra. And this is particularly appealing to me because Willie Moore Jr., a superb arranger, wrote this arrangement of Chopin's Prelude No. 7, and it has been sort of a guideline to me from a standpoint of arranging.
Well, I wouldn't be able to do much about that on a desert island, but I might be able to at least recall what Christmas was like. By playing first a record by a man whom I tremendously admired and who was a great friend of mine, Nat King Cole. And a song that I have to admit I am guilty of writing, along with a man named Bob Wells. This is called the Christmas Song, and I I guess it would do as well as anything to remind me of what Christmas is like in colder climes.
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in SpringFavourite
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham
I thought that after the Christmas song I'm sitting there on that island waiting for spring to come. And what better piece of Frederic Delius's to pick than his beautiful tone poem On hearing the first cuckoo in spring.
The drummer on this is Buddy Rich. The greatest drummer that ever lived, and that ever will live. We've worked together a great deal recently, and one is astounded that a man fifty eight years old can absolutely play drums head, shoulders, armpits, and everything else over any other drummer in the world. ... Jerry Gray's arrangement of the karaoke.
One of the things, if not the favourite Ellington piece, that I've played again and again and again until I know I think every note of it sideways. was the first extended work that he wrote. Now we can't obviously play all of it. It runs about twelve minutes. But he wrote this in 1935. in memory of his mother, who had just passed away. It's called Reminiscing in Tempo, and it's far and away among many Ellington favourites, my favourite Duke Ellington work.
Light Music Society Orchestra conducted by Sir Vivian Dunn
I would imagine that probably the loveliest time of day on a desert island would either be sunrise or sunset, or what we call dusk. And on thinking about that, I think I would be delighted to end every day listening to a beautiful piece of music by an English composer named Armstrong Gibbs. I didn't know about this piece of music for a long time. And I'm in love with it. It's called simply Dusk.
The keepsakes
The book
The New York Times Film Directory
Because I'm a great film fan, a great movie buff... I would see in my mind's eye and remember the great films that I had seen throughout my life... a constant source of joy to me.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Just can you think of any one thing that you would be really delighted to have got away from?
The telephone.
Presenter asks
How did you set about choosing this miserable allowance of eight records?
Well, I think that what one must do if you're placed in this sort of uh hypothetical situation is to think about things that are deathless, timeless, and also things that remind you of where you were and what it was like when you were not on the desert island.
Presenter asks
Did you study formally music?
No, I wish I had, because I write all my own arrangements now, and they're they come very hard to me, because I am not a a studied musician in the in that sense of the word. Everything is instinctive.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 1
Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights' reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy six, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.
Presenter
This week, our castaway is the musician, author and entertainer, Mel Tormay. Mel, could you adjust yourself to lengthy loneliness?
Mel Torme
Might be a bit difficult, Roy. Um I like people. I'm quite gregarious. I'm married to a beautiful English lady named Janet Scott, and I would be missing her and the children terribly. But I think that uh
Mel Torme
If one must adjust, one must adjust.
Presenter
Just can you think of any one thing that you would be really delighted to have got away from?
Mel Torme
The telephone.
Presenter
How did you set about choosing this miserable allowance of eight records?
Mel Torme
Well, I think that what one must do if you're placed in this sort of uh hypothetical situation
Mel Torme
is to think about things that are deathless, timeless, and also things that remind you of where you were and what it was like when you were not on the desert island. What's the first one you've chosen?
Mel Torme
This would remind me of my old neighborhood. I live in Beverly Hills, California, which is adjacent to Westwood Village. And since Jerry Mulligan to me is sort of the latter-day Duke Ellington and a superb arranger and composer, I've chosen Jerry Mulligan and his Tentette and Westwood Walk.
Speaker 4
Hmm.
Speaker 1
Mother
Speaker 1
And that is the
Speaker 1
Uh
Presenter
And
Speaker 4
Mm-hmm.
Presenter
Jerry Mulligan and his tentat Westward Walk. What's your second disc now?
Mel Torme
Well, this is a great favourite of mine. Percy Granger, the Australian composer, who is uh
Mel Torme
One of the great modernists in finding folk songs and turning them into little classics, as I say, is very close to my heart musically. And he found an old English music hall ballad called My Robin is to the Greenwood Gorn. And I feel that this would be in keeping, apropos, since I'm on a desert island with perhaps not a great amount of green.
Presenter
Bertie Granger's My Robin as to the Greenwood Gone, The Eastman Rochester Pops Orchestra conducted by Frederick Fannell.
Presenter
How far back do you remember
Mel Torme
American root scale now. My dad uh came from Russia.
Speaker 4
Uh
Mel Torme
My mother's family came from Russia, although she was born in New York City. And the name was Tor Ma, T O R M A. When my father went to Ellis Island in New York prior to making entry into the country, The man who inspected him, the man who looked at him and looked at the name tag on his coat, couldn't read the A. He thought it was an E. So my father came into America as Tormi, and when I got into the business at a very early age, and I I can't tell you why, I added the accent and it became Torme. Yes. Was he in the music business? No, but I do have several cousins who are in what I call the legitimate side of music. I have a cousin who conducted the Atlanta Symphony, and another cousin who was one of the exalted players in the great fine arts string quartet. So there are some legitimate musicians in my family.
Presenter
Yes. I know you started very, very young and you've done pretty well everything in music. Did you study formally music? Uh
Mel Torme
No, I wish I had, because I write all my own arrangements now, and they're they come very hard to me, because I am not a a studied musician in the in that sense of the word. Everything is instinctive. Has there ever been any time in your life when you wanted to do anything else apart from music? The only thing that uh really interested me was to become an airline pilot. I am a pilot.
Mel Torme
And uh the the joy of flying would seem to me to be a great way to live, to fly airliners all over the world. But that's one of those Walter Mitty-ish kind of dreams that I indulge myself in.
Presenter
And I indulge myself in.
Presenter
Yes. Record number three. What's that?
Mel Torme
Well, this is a combination, really, of uh the love, first of all, of a great composer, Chopin.
Mel Torme
With a great jazz orchestra from America, particularly in the mid and late thirties and early 40s, Jimmy Lunceford and his orchestra. And this is particularly appealing to me because Willie Moore Jr., a superb arranger, wrote this arrangement of Chopin's Prelude No. 7, and it has been sort of a guideline to me from a standpoint of arranging. Listen.
Presenter
Chopin's Prelude No. 7, Jimmy Lunsford and His Orchestra. What's the most satisfying arrangement job you've ever done?
Mel Torme
Well, from a standpoint of arranging, uh I was just recently nominated for a Grammy Award for an arrangement that I wrote that took seventeen minutes of a Gershwin medley, sort of a tribute to George Gershwin.
Speaker 1
Oh, it's good.
Mel Torme
And I would reckon that that is the most rewarding
Mel Torme
thing that's happened to me as an arranger.
Mel Torme
Your first song
Mel Torme
Yeah.
Presenter
published and were in the hit parade when you were in your teens.
Mel Torme
Twenty
Presenter
When I was fourteen. Every solo singer, to be a success, has got to have one great big smash disc to really take him into the news. What was yours?
Mel Torme
Well, in this country it was mountain greenery, obviously. In America it was basically Blue Moon. Blue Moon, of course, I sang in Words and Music, an MGM picture about the life story of Rogers and Hart, the songwriting team. And I was to have sung mountain greenery in that film. It was assigned to me, then taken away from me. And it is rather ironic that years later, not that many years later, as a matter of fact, just a few years later, I made a disc of it on my own. It came to England and God bless the English. They picked it up and clasped it to their collective bosoms. And it became number one for many, many, many weeks, to my everlasting gratitude.
Presenter
Let's get back to this desert island situation. Where are we now?
Mel Torme
Well
Mel Torme
It would occur to me that on a desert island there's certainly not going to be any chance of snow.
Mel Torme
And of course Christmas without snow is not really Christmas at all. I live in California, but I take the family somewhere where there is snow during the Christmas season.
Mel Torme
Well, I wouldn't be able to do much about that on a desert island, but I might be able to at least recall what Christmas was like.
Mel Torme
By playing first a record by a man whom I tremendously admired and who was a great friend of mine, Nat King Cole.
Mel Torme
And a song that I have to admit I am guilty of writing, along with a man named Bob Wells.
Mel Torme
This is called the Christmas Song, and I I guess it would do as well as anything to remind me of what Christmas is like in colder climes.
Presenter
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Presenter
Jack Frost nipping at your nose
Speaker 4
Okay.
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
Yule Tad Carols, Bing Sung Bah Choir.
Presenter
And folks dressed up like Eskimos
Presenter
Everybody knows.
Presenter
The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole. When did you write that note?
Mel Torme
Wrote it in nineteen forty five, but a a bit late for the forty five Christmas uh season, so that it came out in forty six. Did it take you long? Twenty minutes.
Mel Torme
Really? Really, 20 minutes. I'm ashamed to say that. I wish I could say that.
Speaker 4
I'm missing.
Mel Torme
It had taken days of pondering and soul searching and introspection, but the truth of the matter is that it took Bob and I precisely twenty minutes to write that song.
Presenter
And how many times has it been recorded?
Mel Torme
There are at this point over five hundred different recorded versions of the Christmas song.
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Presenter
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Presenter
That's not about twenty minutes' work, is it?
Mel Torme
Not bad at all. I like it. But seven more of those
Presenter
In the meantime, let's have recognized
Mel Torme
Number five. I've met a lot of people, in my age bracket, and older and younger, who have said that the music of Frederick Delius has helped them get get through their adolescence well.
Mel Torme
It is a music that is infused with tremendous beauty.
Mel Torme
sensuousness of a kind, certainly modernity from a standpoint of the fact that he was he was a great delineator of the orchestra in its most modern form, and Delius, as I said, is an obsession with me.
Mel Torme
It's very difficult to pick this, but I thought that after the Christmas song I'm sitting there on that island waiting for spring to come. And what better piece of Frederic Delius's to pick than his beautiful tone poem
Mel Torme
On hearing the first cuckoo in spring.
Presenter
On hearing the first cuckoo in spring, Sir Thomas Beacham conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Presenter
You've been doing a lot of writing lately, ma'am.
Mel Torme
Yes, quite a bit.
Presenter
You wrote a book about uh Judy Garland. You were her MD on the last television series. No, not
Mel Torme
No, not her MD. And I was her musical adviser. I wrote all of her special material, all of her lyrics, put everything together for her, uh and was just sort of the m the musical major domo on that show, if that's the proper word. And I was also a frequent guest as a performer on the old Judy Garland television series, which ran, I think,
Speaker 1
Japan I
Mel Torme
Twenty-nine shows I think we did all together.
Mel Torme
And once it was over, I felt that I was perhaps qualified on a one-on-one, person-to-person basis to write a book.
Mel Torme
About my experiences with Judy, it is not an attempt at a biography. It is purely and simply the year and a half, or perhaps even two years yeah, about two years, that I was involved on a daily basis, personally and intimately, with Judy Garland as a as a human being and as a star.
Presenter
Yes, this was the rather difficult period towards the end.
Mel Torme
Well, I think that Judy had a a very difficult period, quite a long time prior to that, and she was to be
Mel Torme
Loved and pitied.
Mel Torme
and incidentally sometimes censured, because she was of all things
Mel Torme
A human being. I mean, she was a tremendously human
Mel Torme
Being. And I think that all of her flaws and her forts and her foibles.
Mel Torme
I would made her the Miss Steak that we knew as Judy Garland.
Mel Torme
You've been doing a lot of journalism, too. Yes, yes, writing for the New York Times. On what? Uh, book reviews. I did a uh an essay not too long ago on all the books about movies that have come out because I'm a great movie fanatic.
Speaker 4
Yes.
Mel Torme
And more recently, uh as a matter of fact, just before I came to England, I wrote a book review on a new book by, of all people, Cab Calloway, an autobiography by Cab Calloway.
Presenter
And you've written a novel yourself.
Mel Torme
Yes, it's a brand new novel that has just completed. It's being uh edited right now by my literary agent and his staff of people.
Mel Torme
Uh it's it's a bit unwieldy right now. It's nine hundred pages. Wow. And I'm hoping that it they'll cut it down to about six or six fifty and that that it will make a a viable package as a novel. Surprisingly, or not surprisingly, it's about a singer.
Mel Torme
But it is not even remotely autobiographical. It's not me. It's not a thinly disguised
Mel Torme
A biography of Frank Sinatra or anybody else. It is purely and simply.
Mel Torme
A novel of fiction about a singer and what might happen
Mel Torme
in certain circumstances to him, what his hang ups are, what his problems are.
Mel Torme
Uh
Presenter
Back to music. Record number six.
Mel Torme
Excellent.
Mel Torme
The drummer on this is Buddy Rich.
Mel Torme
The greatest drummer
Mel Torme
that ever lived, and that ever will live. We've worked together a great deal recently, and one is astounded that a man fifty eight years old
Mel Torme
Can absolutely play drums head, shoulders, armpits, and everything else over any other drummer in the world. Uh Uh
Presenter
And it's a nice statement by another drummer because you were a drummer for years, weren't you?
Mel Torme
And still am and play drums in my act now. But I mean, I was never in the same light year.
Presenter
But I
Mel Torme
As Buddy Rich, but then who is? And Buddy Rich joined the Artie Shaw band virtually in December, late December, almost at New Year's of 1938, and played with the band only one year during the 1939 season. The band broke up in November of 1939. But during that halcyon golden year, it was one of the most exciting bands, I think, that ever hit the pop big band market. And Buddy Rich is one of the reasons. And when you hear this, the karaoke, you'll hear him in the background shouting Ariba and hoi, hoy, hoy, and virtually infusing that band with an enthusiasm that was contagious to everyone who saw it and heard it. Jerry Gray's arrangement of the karaoke.
Speaker 4
Uh
Presenter
The Artistore Orchestra with Buddy Rich. You're on this island, Mel. Are you practical? Could you look after yourself? Are you good with your hands?
Mel Torme
I'm not the greatest with my hands, but if I have to throw some logs together and build a fire and I I think I'm adaptable. I think I could assimilate. Have you done any fishing? Oh yes. Like to fish. Enjoy that. Do you know anything about small craft?
Presenter
Enjoy that.
Mel Torme
Yes, I do. I had I had a large craft at one time.
Mel Torme
Would you try to escape? I would try. Good.
Presenter
Yeah.
Mel Torme
Yeah.
Mel Torme
Record number seven.
Mel Torme
If indeed
Mel Torme
Frederick Delius is my
Mel Torme
God as a classical composer.
Mel Torme
So is, and has, and has always been, Duke Ellington, uh been his counterpart in the popular or jazz end of the of the spectrum.
Mel Torme
And uh
Mel Torme
One of the things, if not the favourite Ellington piece, uh
Mel Torme
That I've played again and again and again until I know I think every note of it sideways.
Mel Torme
was the first extended work that he wrote. Now we can't obviously play all of it. It runs about twelve minutes. But he wrote this in 1935.
Mel Torme
in memory of his mother, who had just passed away.
Mel Torme
It's called Reminiscing in Tempo, and it's far and away among many Ellington favourites, my favourite Duke Ellington work.
Presenter
Duke Ellington's Reminiscing in Temper.
Presenter
Which brings us now Meltio Last Disk.
Mel Torme
Well, all days must end, mustn't they, Roy, and I would imagine that probably the the loveliest time of day on a desert island would
Mel Torme
either be sunrise or sunset, or what we call dusk
Mel Torme
And on thinking about that, I think I would be delighted to end.
Mel Torme
Every day listening to a beautiful piece of music by an English composer named Armstrong Gibbs.
Mel Torme
I didn't know about this piece of music for a long time.
Mel Torme
And I'm in love with it. It's called simply
Mel Torme
Dusk.
Presenter
Dusk by Armstrong Gibbs, played by the Light Music Society Orchestra conducted by Sir Vivian Dunne. Mel, if you could take just one disc out of the eight, which would it be?
Mel Torme
Well, I think you know that answer already. Obviously, uh it would be the delius on hearing the first cuckoo in spring.
Presenter
And if you could take one luxury to the island.
Mel Torme
Uh
Mel Torme
Well, I'm assuming it's a tropical island, right? It's a tropical island. And very hot.
Presenter
Groups of
Mel Torme
Well, don't laugh. I would need I would need a luxury plus a component because I would need an air conditioner in order to sleep properly. Which would mean, obviously, a a dynamo or what Solar batteries. All right, solar batteries. I'll buy that.
Presenter
Alright, so
Presenter
Good, an air conditioner. And one book apart from the Bible, Shakespeare, and big encyclopedias.
Mel Torme
I would take the New York Times.
Mel Torme
Film Directory
Mel Torme
Because I'm a great film fan, a great movie buff. And the New York Times book is a voluminous book of almost every film ever made with reviews on it, commentary, and I would see in my mind's eye and remember the great films that I had seen throughout my life. And I think that would be a great companion and uh a constant source of uh
Mel Torme
of joy to me.
Presenter
Right. And thank you, Mel Tormay, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.
Mel Torme
It's been a great pleasure. Thank you, Roy.
Presenter
Goodbye, everyone.
Speaker 1
You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.
Presenter asks
Has there ever been any time in your life when you wanted to do anything else apart from music?
The only thing that uh really interested me was to become an airline pilot. I am a pilot. And uh the the joy of flying would seem to me to be a great way to live, to fly airliners all over the world. But that's one of those Walter Mitty-ish kind of dreams that I indulge myself in.
Presenter asks
What's the most satisfying arrangement job you've ever done?
Well, from a standpoint of arranging, uh I was just recently nominated for a Grammy Award for an arrangement that I wrote that took seventeen minutes of a Gershwin medley, sort of a tribute to George Gershwin. And I would reckon that that is the most rewarding thing that's happened to me as an arranger.
Presenter asks
Every solo singer, to be a success, has got to have one great big smash disc to really take him into the news. What was yours?
Well, in this country it was mountain greenery, obviously. In America it was basically Blue Moon. Blue Moon, of course, I sang in Words and Music, an MGM picture about the life story of Rogers and Hart, the songwriting team. And I was to have sung mountain greenery in that film. It was assigned to me, then taken away from me. And it is rather ironic that years later, not that many years later, as a matter of fact, just a few years later, I made a disc of it on my own. It came to England and God bless the English. They picked it up and clasped it to their collective bosoms. And it became number one for many, many, many weeks, to my everlasting gratitude.
“I'm married to a beautiful English lady named Janet Scott, and I would be missing her and the children terribly.”
“I write all my own arrangements now, and they come very hard to me, because I am not a studied musician in the in that sense of the word. Everything is instinctive.”
“The only thing that uh really interested me was to become an airline pilot. I am a pilot. And uh the the joy of flying would seem to me to be a great way to live, to fly airliners all over the world. But that's one of those Walter Mitty-ish kind of dreams that I indulge myself in.”
“It came to England and God bless the English. They picked it up and clasped it to their collective bosoms. And it became number one for many, many, many weeks, to my everlasting gratitude.”
“I think that Judy had a a very difficult period, quite a long time prior to that, and she was to be loved and pitied. and incidentally sometimes censured, because she was of all things a human being. I mean, she was a tremendously human being. And I think that all of her flaws and her forts and her foibles. I would made her the Miss Steak that we knew as Judy Garland.”
“I would take the New York Times Film Directory. Because I'm a great film fan, a great movie buff. And the New York Times book is a voluminous book of almost every film ever made with reviews on it, commentary, and I would see in my mind's eye and remember the great films that I had seen throughout my life. And I think that would be a great companion and uh a constant source of uh of joy to me.”