Mel Torme – Comin’ Home Baby b/w Ben Tucker RIP
Ben Tucker (Left) & Bob Dorough (Right) & Mel Torme (Bottom)
Listen/Download Mel Torme – Comin’ Home Baby
Greetings all
It’s almost that time, by which I mean the time when the Funky16Corners Radio Show takes to the airwaves of the interwebs on Viva Radio. This and every Friday night at 9PM you get to hear my dulcet tones rapping about/alongside the finest in funk, soul, jazz and rare groove, all on original vinyl. If you can’t be there at the time of broadcast, you can always subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes or grab an MP3 here at the blog.
I realize that most of you will have no idea who Ben Tucker was, so bear with me.
Tucker was a well-traveled sideman on a wide variety of jazz sessions through the 50s and 60s, working the arco and the pizzicato beside heavies like Grant Green, Dexter Gordon, Wes Montgomery, Art Pepper and a busload of others.
That, despite the obvious quality of his work, is all largely beside the point, because it was as a composer – of one particular song – that has Ben Tucker’s name chiseled into the wall at the Hall of Fame.
That song – which you see before you was written by Tucker and first recorded by the Donald Bailey Quartet in 1961, but really took off the following year after the mighty Bob Dorough (yes, the coolest cat to ever turn the times tables into groovy music) added some lyrics to the tune, and it was recorded by the old Velvet Fog, Mr Mel Torme.
That version of the song (oddly enough, recorded almost exactly a week after my birth) was a hit for Mel, and went on to become a cornerstone of the swinging vibe (as well as a Mod jazz fave).
The song itself became a soul jazz/jazz standard, bipped, bopped, and rearranged countless times by many, many people, in many different guises. ‘Comin’ Home Baby’ is – along with songs like ‘Listen Here’, ‘Sack’O’Woe’ and ‘Work Song’ – one of the building blocks of the classic era of soul jazz.
No matter how many times you hear it done, though, nobody, but NOBODY dropped it like old Mel.
With a foundation of piano, bass, drums and the insistent chank of a rhythm guitar, you soon get Mr Torme (and some ladies in the background) showing you all how you can be super smooth and cutting in the same breath.
‘Comin’ Home Baby’ is especially groovy, and enduring because along with your jazz (Torme is one of the most respected jazz voices of his time) you get an undercurrent of R&B, in a Ray Charles stylee that gives the record an extra, propulsive kick that never lets up.
It’s one of those 45s that literally pulls people up out of their seats, on account of the groove is so deep and wide that even the moldiest fig can’t help but shake a leg.
When he died, Ben Tucker had long since relocated to Savannah, GA where he became a fixture of the local scene as both a musician and businessman.
He will be missed, but the mighty song he penned will live on.
Have a great weekend.
Keep the faith
Larry
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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived!
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They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US).
Click here to go to the ordering page.
Also, make sure that you check out the links below to the Be The Match Foundation and POAC (click on the logos for more info).
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Themocracy
Great stuff, Mel Torme was the best.
I think Travis Wammack’s “Scratchy” and Spencer Davis’ “I’m a Man” owe these songwriters a lot.
It is a VERY heavily borrowed from tune. Mr Tucker should have been a zillionaire.
Another song indebted to it is “Locked In’ by Jimmie Haskell from the 1963 Capitol LP “John Severson Presents Sunset Surf”. The track is currently available for download from iTunes as part of an “Ultra Surf Presents” compilation under the name of John Severson.