“My folks got divorced when I was two so, I didn’t live with Mel Torme past the age of two. I was taken in by Hal March who married my mom and became my step-dad and all of Hal’s friends were the Borgfeld comedians. So, our dinner parties just about every weekend were Lucy and Milton Berle, Phil Silvers and Shecky Greene, Buddy Hackett and Red Buttons. So, I grew up around all of these comedians and it was great and a lot of laughs; these were the people who were our best friends. My original desire was to be a major league baseball player. I would listen to the Yankees as a kid in Westchester County and that was my first goal was to be a major league ball player; I played a lot of baseball. After hearing the games I’d listen to the radio, I would listen to the AM hits of the day and like a billion other kids when I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan I went, oh this, this is turning me on. This doesn’t sound like Jerry Lee Lewis, this doesn’t sound like Elvis, this is a completely different thing and pop music became my influence. As much as I do a lot of jazz in my shows because there is obviously some influence from my dad because I do have his genes, I cut my teeth on The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan and Todd Rundgren. Those are the people that I listened to; again, very melodic pop writers. I really kind of connected with my dad in the last 15 years of his life and we started having a more common ground musically and that’s how things kind of came about.”
So, other than being surrounded by comedic royalty, it seems that Steve March Torme grew up with the hopes and dreams of most children of his generation. These dreams and hopes that he keeps alive through memories and nostalgic looks back at the past have resulted in the release of a new Christmas song geared toward getting us to do the same and it is titled “I Remember Christmas Time.”
”I Remember Christmas Time,” I did an interview the other day and someone said; “Why did you wait until now to write a Christmas song? Your dad wrote that one 76 years ago.” This wasn’t a calculated move on my part, I said, basically I had written a song called “A Different Time” from my last album and when I do my concerts, that seems to be the one that resonates the most with the audiences and the one that people want to talk about afterward if they are buying a CD; “Is this the one that has the song about your kids on it?” One of the guys that I do these concerts with here in the mid-west; we were in the middle of a 10 concert run of a show called “For Kids From 1 to 92,” we’ve got 14 people on stage, it’s a big show. He came to me about a month and a half ago and said, “I’ve always loved that song “A Different Time” but I keep hearing a different title.” I said, OK but that song is already written and he said, “I keep hearing “I Remember Christmas Time,” you might want to think about changing it.” I said, well that song is already recorded, that’s not what it’s about. Then we started talking about it and I thought, maybe that’s not a bad idea. It is about the same thing, I changed a few words to it and made it more holiday oriented and that’s how this song came about. “I Remember Christmas Time” ends up being this rather sentimental look back; everybody can look back on Christmas when they were a kid and it’s a much different feeling when you’re an adult and that’s what it is basically about.”
Looking back sometimes is the only way to move forward and often times as we lose the innocence of youth and the spirit of St. Nicholas; we at times reflect and yearn for those bygone days and those classic tunes of the holiday season that take us back to our own memories. Memories which are like snowflakes, no two are alike and vary from person to person. Torme recognizes this and it is one of the reasons he has released this timely piece of work.
“I think that is one of the reasons that this song is resonating. Mariah Carey’s Christmas song is a fun, bouncy pop tune that has done extremely well but songs like “I’ll be home for Christmas” and “The Christmas Song” and hopefully this song I’ve written here will invoke almost a Norman Rockwell-ion feeling when you listen to it. It is nostalgic, when we were kids; when you’re eight years old, from December 1, all you’re doing is looking at the calendar; only 24 more days! You’re so excited about waking up that morning; can we get our presents now? When you become an adult, obviously that changes. You’re dreading going to the mall, it’s still a nice time of year and it’s nice to get together with family; especially the ones you still talk to (laughs) but when you’re a kid, you look out the window and it’s snowing and exciting and that’s really what I’m trying to evoke here. When I wrote the original tune, my kids were only like two and four years old and I remember going to a park with them and knowing they felt secure and safe and then it evolved into a Christmas song thinking about evergreens, twinkling lights and Christmas carols. As corny those images are, they do occur every single year and no matter how much we are in a world where everyone has their faces buried in their phones there are still young kids who are excited about Christmas and the idea of being with their families so, that’s really how this evolved.”
“In another interview that I did recently, someone asked me specifically what my favorite Christmas ornament was,” he continued; “My kids are 17 and 15 and they just love when the tree comes out every year and we all put up ornaments together and they are always the same ornaments and every year they love looking at them because you don’t look at them for 11 months. They go away into a box and then 11 months later there is a nostalgic feeling; oh yeah, I remember this one or I remember when we got this one, ooh look how small we were at this time. So, I think, maybe at this time of the year or maybe at Thanksgiving really kind of evokes those kind of feelings of yeah, I like the fact that there is a permeance about this. If I had to pick a favorite ornament, when my wife and I first got together, our first Christmas as husband and wife we went and got an ornament that kind of looks like a Faberge egg and its got red and blue fake gems that represent our birthstones.”
With nostalgia playing such a big part and the timeless classics of the past already written; does Torme see anything like those compositions in today’s music?
“Again, this was not a calculated move on my part but being a musician and doing this for a living, doing concerts and someone who also writes; it’s not for me to sit here and criticize today’s music, that’s just stupid,” he said emphatically. “I do know that there is a huge change in what is being put out today as opposed to even 20 years ago let alone 40 years ago much less 60 years ago. When you start talking about the old songs you start sounding like your grandparents; when the Beatles came out, my grandfather was like, “To hell with the yeah, yeah, yeah and the long hair” and I get it but the truth is they wrote great songs. Irving Berlin could’ve written “Eleanor Rigby,” they ended up writing great tunes with great melodies. My dad wrote a great melody with “The Christmas Song” and what turns me on is melodies and a lot of today’s music is beat driven but it is what it is and it’s not for me to say it’s good, bad or indifferent. I wanted to find something that still had a melody so that 15 years from now when you hear it you can say, oh yeah I know that song, ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-ba-da-da-da-da; a melody. That’s what “Sleigh Ride” has, that’s what “Let It Snow” has, they have melodies.”
Torme also recognizes that there is a different tone in today’s music which in part is why he released “I Remember Christmas Time.”
“There are more people like Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon who are in their 70’s that are considered “Modern” songwriters compared to the Irving Berlins and Richard Rodgers who really were great imagery writers. There are still some people today that write great lyrics, I have been hosting a radio show for 10 years so, I do listen to a lot of music but I can’t listen to everything and as the world has unfortunately gotten a little nastier and a little more desperate; there are not a lot of flowing flowery images being written in music. There is a lot of angst, a lot of anxiety and depression and its too bad and Americana music has a lot of it. The longer we go on and the next generation comes up, we are hearing a lot of; hey, what’s the point? The planet is poisoned, you guys did this, your generation didn’t take care of the planet, people hate each other, politics is dividing us; what’s the point? That’s a horrible place to be in and I’m not being Pollyannish about this, I’m very cognizant of the fact that there are a lot of problems but geez, music is supposed to be an escape so, it’s nice to have something positive out there.”
To discover more about Steve March Torme, please visit www.stevemarchtorme.com .
To my friends, readers and supporters with a special thank you to Gary Wien and New Jersey Stage Magazine; I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday Season!
That's it for this week! Please continue to support live and original music and until next week....ROCK ON!
