This is a CD reissue of the 1978 album
Mel Tormé & Buddy Rich: Together Again for the First Time, originally released on LP by Gryphon Records (G-784) and as a direct-to-disc recording on Century Records (CRDD-1100). The original title refers to its being the first studio match-up between
Tormé and his longtime friend
Rich, although the two had appeared together on numerous occasions (and
Tormé would later become
Rich's biographer). The live-in-the-studio recording occurred in the middle of a long period in
Tormé's recording career, lasting from 1974, when he left Atlantic Records, to 1982, when he joined Concord, during which he spent relatively little time in the studio. Clearly, the reason for this lay with the music business and not the singer, since, at 52, he sounds at the top of his game here, singing mostly his own arrangements of standards like "Here's That Rainy Day" (on which he's accompanied by alto saxophonist
Phil Woods) and "Lady Be Good" (done as a tribute to
Ella Fitzgerald).
The Rich Orchestra is in equally fine form on its instrumental showcases "Cape Verdean Blues" (by
Horace Silver) and "Funk City Ola." The stand-out track for both singer and band is the unusual eight-minute version of "Blues in the Night." It's a shame
Tormé didn't do more recording with the
Rich band, since they are so well suited to each other. As it is, Hindsight's 1999 reissue, coming shortly after
Tormé's death, helped fill a hole in his in-print discography.