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Video cut from 1945 movie "Let's go steady"
Melvin Howard Tormé, nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, best known as a singer of jazz standards. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, drummer, and actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books. He composed the music for the classic holiday song "The Christmas Song" and co-wrote the lyrics with Bob Wells

In 1962 his R&B song "Comin' home, Baby" led the jazz and gospel singer Ethel Waters to say that "Tormé is the only white man who sings with the soul of a black man."
"Comin' Home, Baby" was later covered instrumentally by Quincy Jones and Kai Winding.

Sir George Shearing, British jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group, talking about Tormé said: "It is impossible to imagine a more compatible musical partner... I humbly put forth that Mel and I had the best musical marriage in many a year. We literally breathed together during our countless performances. As Mel put it, we were two bodies of one musical mind."

On August 8, 1996, a stroke abruptly ended Tormé's 65-year singing career.
In February 1999, Mel Tormé was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In his eulogistic essay, John Andrews wrote about Tormé:
"Tormé's style shared much with that of his idol, Ella Fitzgerald. Both were firmly rooted in the foundation of the swing era, but both seemed able to incorporate bebop innovations to keep their performances sounding fresh and contemporary. Like Sinatra, they sang with perfect diction and brought out the emotional content of the lyrics through subtle alterations of phrasing and harmony. Unlike Sinatra, both Fitzgerald and Tormé were likely to cut loose during a swinging up-tempo number with several scat choruses, using their voices without words to improvise a solo like a brass or reed instrument."

Mel Tormé has been given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame