Eric Felten has flourished as a modern jazz vocalist and trombonist, garnering various awards of recognition for his live performances and recordings. Felten has now taken his career to the next plateau by revealing a great source of his own inspiration, the late-50s recordings of velvety crooner Mel Torme.

In his latest compilation, Eric Felten Meets the Dek-Tette—A Tribute to Mel Torme and Marty Paich (V.S.O.P.), the modern-day crooner pays tribute to The Dek-Tette—Marty Paich's musical ensemble that backed Torme between 1956 and 1960. This album is not simply recreations of the Mel Torme arrangements—it exposes the listener to new original treatments done in the informed style of the great Paich.

To accomplish the task of recreating anew the music and feel of the Torme/Paich pairing, Felten has enlisted the help of numerous members of the original Dek-Tette, including Jack Sheldon, Herb Geller, Med Flory, and Bob Enevoldsen. The arrangements of the excellent American Jazz standards selected come from the nimble minds of Brent Wallarab and Scott Silbert, and are true to the original Dek-Tette experience.

The album opens with an up-tempo representation of "You're Driving Me Crazy", giving the audience a hopping trumpet solo from Jack Sheldon and emphasizing the clear, mellow vocals of the singer. The same mood is carried through later with glorious big band glitz on "I Could Write A Book", treating the listener to some Mel Torme-style scatting. There's an approachable, nice guy quality inherent in this style of crooning that makes you want to introduce Eric Felten to your grandmother.

With that thought in mind, there's a lot of great stuff here for the ballroom foxtrot crowd, most specifically "Where Or When", "Gone With The Wind", and the album's closer "This Can't Be Love". There's a nice swingin', 'mambo-style' interpretation of the perennial "It's All Right With Me" that you'll definitely re-play immediately after hearing it, containing a trombone solo from Felten himself.

There are some nice moody slow pieces in "I'll Be Around" and "I'll Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry", the latter featuring Geller in some great lyrical alto. Overall, the recording is a top-shelf blend of the moods and rhythms that a fan of this genre would appreciate.

Felten is a modern crooner whose presentation of the standards is reminiscent of Michael Buble or Harry Connick Jr.—he creates an image that is a combination of class and accessibility with a deep appreciation for the styles that he draws from. In his "meeting with the Dek-Tette," Felten shows his audience that he understands and loves this material with a passion big enough to fill any ballroom...or just the living room of a fan of great music.

ericfelten.com