The eMusic Dozen: Crooners

Der Bingle (his oddest nickname) became a universal father figure in the '40s, and a national institution. But early ('20s and '30s) Bing, stretching back to his apprenticeship with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, had the lagoon-like blue eyes of a sensual singer, a romantic ideal -- and his voice a teasing instrument, stretching and elasticizing time and space. He was the first modern singer, as in modulation, and this varied collection, which finds him absorbing black influences ("Mississippi Mud"), Hawaiian legatos ("Sweet Leilani"), impending stardom ("I Surrender Dear" with Gus Arnheim's Orchestra) and even do-si-do'ing on the prairie ("I'm an Old Cowhand" with Jimmy Dorsey), shows his (home-on-the) range and reclined prowess.

The clown prince of crooning, Rudy Vallee was -- ironically -- its most serious devotee. He adores the female, only sings the choruses of his songs (why waste time on all that exposition?), once wrote an unpublished book of his romantic life called Dolls of the Vallee and had the kind of after-career (when his trademark megaphone became a stylistic signifier) that was his own parody. He didn't mind. Rudy always enjoyed reprising his greatest hits, and this collection contains many of the songs he's best known for, including "Vagabond Lover," "The Whiffenpoof Song" and the signifying "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries."

Of all the '50s-based Italo-crooners, Bennett has survived into the modern age by celebrating a classicism; at this point he is a virtual repository of the great American canon of standards. His warm-blooded takes (and alternates!) on the Greatest Hits of Richard and Larry -- the latter as a lyricist surely more urbane and darker than his upbeat '40s successor, Oscar -- swings them into a timelessness far from their roots in America's Depression years. "Blue Moon": need I say more? And for fans of the second person familiar, "Thou Swell."

Como is classically remembered as the host of a laid-back '50s television variety show that seemed to appeal to the comfy slippers set, hardly the stuff of romantic innuendo; but in the '40s, as the once-barber from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, sowed the seeds of his reputation, he embodied cosmopolitan appeal. He took his cue from Bing Crosby and Russ Columbo (whose "Prisoner of Love" was one of Perry's biggest '40s hits) and his agreeable voice shines on other songs like "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows."

Mr. B was a smooth jazz vocalist in the '40s (his big band then included bebop luminaries like Fats Navarro and Dizzy Gillespie) when he allowed his sub-baritone to languish on hits like Russ Columbo's "You Call It Madness" and "Prisoner of Love" (which is possibly how James Brown came to the latter song in a startling 1963 version). Billy would cross over to a pop audience in the '50s, and in these mature albums he recorded for Stax subsidiary Enterprise in the early '70s, covered such pop hits as the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun," Bread's "Make It With You" and Steven Stills' "Love the One You're With." Smooth, baby. . .

Fred Astaire is hardly hailed for his voice, though one might say that his dancing was as come-hither as anything he could maneuver through his vocal chords. Nonetheless, he embodied the crooner uniform of "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails," and his "Dream Dancing" and "Fascinating Rhythm" underscore such bee-you-tiful songs as "The Way You Look Tonight." As Fred advises, "Let's Face the Music and Dance," tap-tip-toe.

For many classic crooners, it's not only the singer, but the song. Johnny Mercer was one of the premier songwriters of his day, which lasted amazingly enough for half a century, and included such that's-why-they-call-them standards as "Moon River" and "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby." In particular, he had a knack for the weather and the passings of the seasons -- "Come Rain or Come Shine," "Summer Wind" and "Autumn Leaves." Here he sings these climactic changes in an understated, intimate manner, befitting the lyrics themselves.

The French lingual is particularly suited to the croon, with its rounded overtones and chic Montmartre air; Chevalier made the winked eye international. He began his film career in 1908, and his hat-and-stick song-and-dance mated well with the advent of the talkies. "Louise," his best-known theme (at least until another "little" girl, Gigi, came along with "Thank Heaven for. . ."), is from his first US film, the 1929 Innocents of Paris; the follow-up, The Playboy of Paris (1930), left little doubt to the manner of his appeal. His approach might best be inscribed in another of his best-loved melodies, "Mon Cocktail D'Amour."

I think of the resilient Anthony Benedetto as more a singer's singer than a crooner, but on this album, a 1975 duet with pianist Bill Evans, there's a dialogue emotionally akin to the mating dance interplay that is the keynote of romantic song. Evans splays his chords and passing tones around Bennett's assured soaring in classics like "My Foolish Heart," (which, along with "Young and Foolish," seems to represent Tony's view of love unleashed as slightly irresponsible) and "When in Rome," a teasing and tangling that enhances each man's interpretative skills.

He of the fragile tone, hardly ever straying from one octave, blowing what was left of his breath through a whispery horn, singing standards like "My Funny Valentine" as if his heart was about to fly out of his chest. Baker's life was marred by tragedy and self-destruction, ravaging his matinee idol features and shortening his artistic lifespan, but he knew how to make every note count, as well as the spaces in between. The instrumental only Chet, also on Fantasy/Prestige and from 1959, is another translucent outing.

"Stardust," whose divine melody made even Carmichael wonder if it might have been delivered from above, might be the most perfect song ever written, a croon to the universe at large. Hoagy was encouraged in his composing by none other than Bix Beiderbecke, and his love of early jazz coupled with Tin Pan Alley to create such eternal favorites as "Georgia On My Mind," and "Lazy River," suiting Carmichael's slouch-hat stage demeanor and southern-simmered vocalizations.

Torme's strengths as an arranger gave him a melodic versatility that moved him toward jazz rather than pop music, though he always straddled the line in an intelligent, even elegant, manner. His voice lowered as he grew older, and his skill with a harmonic moved him into wordless singing -- the scat -- with an assured ease, the voice as pure instrument. My Night to Dream is as urbane as its sky-lined cover, a music meant for a smoky saloon or supper club in the days when such boites were more than a marketing concept, and it is a delight to hear him sing "My Foolish Heart," "I'll Be Seeing You" and "Auf Weidersehen," his voice caressing, undressing.