Wealth & Money Quote by Mel Torme

Mel Torme drops this anecdote like a perfectly timed rimshot: casual, almost tossed off, but engineered to land. By invoking Buddy Rich - a virtuoso whose child-prodigy mythology is basically jazz folklore - Torme borrows the glow of that legend while quietly insisting he belongs in the same sentence. The move is deft because it reads as admiration first, self-credentialing second. "For instance" and "I think it was" are doing cultural work here: they soften the brag, signal conversational modesty, and keep the listener from hearing ambition too loudly.

The subtext is about legitimacy in a business that loves origin stories. Mid-century American entertainment prized the narrative of being "born into it" - not just talented, but fated. Torme isn't simply saying he started young; he's establishing that show business didn't happen to him, it recognized him early. That matters for an artist often boxed in by the "Velvet Fog" persona: the silky voice, the suave packaging, the suspicion (especially in jazz-adjacent circles) that polish equals calculation. Starting at four reframes polish as lifelong craftsmanship, not adult artifice.

There's also a subtle defensive edge. Child performance can read as novelty; Torme counters by pairing himself with Rich, whose early start is treated as evidence of greatness, not gimmick. The intent is to normalize his own precocity, to make it sound less like a boast than a biographical fact: this is simply how serious musicians are made.