Mel Torme

There isn’t a dearth of it, but I will confess that it’s harder for me to find songs on which I’m willing to invest anything from ten to fifteen hours writing an arrangement than it was in times past.

My initial career, really, as a baby, was as a singer.

I would be a liar if I said it wouldn’t be lovely and soothing – that’s the word – to have a hit single or a hit album.

As regards my feelings about drummers – there’s Buddy Rich, and then there’s everybody else.

Buddy Rich is one of a kind; he’s a genius, and that’s all there is to it.

I got into radio when I was eight, and I was one of the busiest child dramatic actors in America.

See, I never wrote arrangements for the band for Judy Garland; I did strictly special material, special lyrics, put together all of her medleys.

So I’m sorry, I’m going to continue to talk to the people, because I do believe that if they get to know you and what you are as a human being, they can more appreciate what you are as a performer.

It may sound a bit like an army barracks, but the truth of the matter is: there must be some time laid aside for arranging, time for working on either a book or an article – I’ve written two articles in the last four months for the New York Times book review section.

How many radio shows I did is lost to memory now; it’s in the hundreds – maybe even close to being in the thousands – for the span of years from the time I was eight till I was about fifteen.

I want to sing for the broadest possible audience.

Talking money is crass; so I’m not going to tell you what I made last year.

As Buddy Rich, for instance, broke into the business at the age of three, I think it was, on drums, so indeed did I break into the business at the age of four as a singer.

But, in fairness to them, too, the popular song per se is really a pretty shallow medium to perform in.

As a singer, the biggest joy I have are the arrangements.

I hadn’t been a recording artist all that long when albums came on the scene, and I was one of the first singers to point the way to how varied an album’s contents could be.

Because obviously the whole purpose of putting records out is purely and simply to make money.

I was a singer professionally when I was four years old, and I did not really begin to play any instrument – the first one, of course, was drums – till I was about nine years old.

Whenever I did a good performance, my Dad and my uncles, who were rabid movie fans, took me to the movies. There began my underlying love affair with film.

Right now, my career is in three directions: as a performer, as an arranger, as an author – and I don’t give any one of them true precedent, or true top marks, as opposed to the other two.

Because Chicago was to radio what Hollywood was to films and Broadway was to the theatre: it was the hub of radio.

I didn’t really have an act per se – a theatrical performance, as opposed to just: here I am, folks, and you’re all supposed to be dead quiet while I sing eight or nine songs, then get off the stage.