klindell@VenturaCountyStar.com

Last year, South Fashion Show Drive in Las Vegas became Mel Tormé Way.

The designation is a fitting gesture to honor jazz singer Tormé, who did his share of headlining Vegas shows. And the legendary late crooner, whose smooth voice earned him a nickname he despised, "The Velvet Fog," might find sweet irony in seeing his name on the road of an arid desert town.

Tormé's son James, however, has higher ambitions than street signage for maintaining his dad's reputation.

"I want to leave my father's legacy to my own generation," said James Tormé, 33. "He is very underrated by anyone under 40. Vegas has a street named after him, but no one knows who he is."

Mel Tormé might live on in TV syndication and pop culture as the guy that Harry Anderson idolized on the 1980s sitcom "Night Court," but the younger Tormé wants the world to remember his father for his career as an incredibly accomplished jazz vocalist and composer (anyone who's heard the holiday classic "The Christmas Song," aka "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" — and who hasn't? — is hearing a Mel Tormé composition).

So Mel Tormé's way of singing has become his son's.

James Tormé, who once drifted toward R&B music but is now an acclaimed up-and-coming jazz singer, will pay homage to his father at a concert with the New West Symphony on Friday.

The show — New West's first-ever jazz concert — will feature standards like "It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing" performed by James Tormé and his trio (pianist Brandon Coleman, drummer Gene Coy and bassist Ryan Cross), trumpeter John Daversa and guest conductor John Altman. (The concert is New West's first full-length concert without conductor Boris Brott, who had another engagement.)

But the highlight of the show might be a performance of excerpts from Mel Tormé's "California Suite," a medley of songs that celebrate the Golden State's greatness, including one that contains this favorable line about our county's namesake town: "We are quite sure a few days in Ventura would make you see things our way."

An original recording of "California Suite" in 1949 by Harold Mooney and his orchestra with the Mel-Tones (Tormé's singing group) and the Capitol Chorus was the first 12-inch LP released by Capitol Records, but the ambitious symphonic jazz piece has mostly been forgotten and is rarely heard live. Only a few other recordings exist, including a 1960s rendition by Sammy Davis Jr. and a 1957 version arranged by Marty Paich.

The New West Symphony concert will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Paich recording.

We're not done yet with the father-son talent connections: Paich's son David, a Grammy Award-winning musician and composer who cofounded the band Toto, will conduct the "California Suite" portion of the New West program. The Mel Tormé family salute Friday includes a daughter: James Tormé's sister, Daisy, will make an appearance at the concert.

"I'm the biggest fan in the world of Marty Paich and my dad and the chapter of West Coast jazz they are known for creating together," James Tormé said. The "California Suite" is "an incredible work; it never received the exposure it deserved. It's a very expensive unit show to put on, especially with the choral parts."

James Tormé said he and David Paich spent weeks digging into their respective family archives, searching for written notes and manuscripts, to piece together a new, shortened version, with fewer voice parts. James Tormé called their 30-minute condensed work "the suite express."

James Tormé said he and David Paich also left out portions of the suite that, for some reason, lauded non-California sites like Miami and New York's Coney Island.

"This is just the first concert," James Tormé said. "The excerpts are a prelude. We plan to do it many times with many orchestras, including doing the full California Suite.' We'd like to go up and down the West Coast of the U.S. It would be such a gift to the state."

James Tormé, who lives in Sherman Oaks, grew up with his mother, Janette Scott (the third of Mel Tormé's four wives) in her native London, where he attended boarding school.

"I spent a lot of time with my dad during holidays; he took time off work or we'd go on the road with him," James Tormé said. While visiting his father, he developed a fascination for California. "Being in London boarding schools, it was all part of the fantasy of coming home," he said. "California seemed like Disneyland compared to England."

In 2004, James Tormé, who'd grown up steeped in his father's music as well as modern-day pop tunes, began his own singing career. But although he was "keen on jazz, I wanted to come out on my own two feet creatively," he said.

James Tormé also has an older brother, Steve, who sings jazz. "I didn't want to be them," James said of his dad and sibling.

In 2004, he said, "I was burgeoning into R&B, headlining shows at the Viper Room along the lines of Justin Timberlake." As an encore, James Tormé always sang an a cappella version of Thelonious Monk's jazz tune "'Round Midnight."

"The mostly young, female audience was blown away by it," Tormé said. "They loved R&B, but hearing that song transported them to a never-before experienced place. I grew up with those songs; they were always irresistible to me. The minute I knew people of that generation and younger would be interested in these songs, it was all the excuse I needed" to become a jazz singer. "Jazz had always been who I was if you peeled away the skin of the onion."

In 2005, James Tormé recorded an EP, "Comin' Home, and plans to release his debut full-length album soon. He's also been selected as a finalist for the 2007 Chuck Niles Jazz Music Award; he'll compete for the honor by performing July 14 at the Temecula Valley International Jazz Festival.

James Tormé said he is determined to make jazz more mainstream.

"I want to put jazz back in the spotlight the way it should have always been; it's always been the best music in this country," he said. "I want jazz to be in the televised part of the Grammys" (instead of the earlier, off-the-air portion of the awards ceremony deemed not interesting enough for prime time).

James Tormé said that "even though it's important for me to keep this material alive, I see myself as an evolution. I'm going back in the sense that I love that music; I have elements from that time. But the R&B and pop influence from my childhood is important too. I like having it represented a little in my music."

On the Net:

http://www.jamestorme.com