Personnel:
Peggy Lee (vcl), Pete Candoli (tp), Bud Shank (fl, as), Bob Cooper (ts), Jimmy Rowles, Lou Levy (p), Bill Pitman (g), Max Wayne (b), Ed Shaughnessy, Larry Bunker (d), Shorty Rogers, Sy Oliver (arr)
Reference: EJC55441
Bar code: 8436028694419
This CD contains the complete sessions from Peggy Lees two celebrated Decca albums "Black Coffee" and "Dream Street", marking the first time ever that either of these LPs is released with all of the tracks from its studio dates.
Tracklisting:
01. BLACK COFFEE (3:09)
02. IVE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN (2:31)
03. EASY LIVING (2:47)
04. MY HEART BELONGS TO DADDY (2:11)
05. IT AINT NECESSARILY SO (3:26)
06. GEE BABY, AINT I GOOD TO YOU? (3:26)
07. A WOMAN ALONE WITH THE BLUES (3:16)
08. I DIDNT KNOW WHAT TIME IT WAS (2:21)
09. (AH, THE APPLE TREES) WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG (3:21)
10. LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME (2:10)
11. YOURE MY THRILL (3:26)
12. THERES A SMALL HOTEL (2:48)
13. DO I LOVE YOU? (1:37) *
14. GUESS ILL GO BACK HOME (THIS SUMMER) (3:18) *
15. STREET OF DREAMS (3:22)
16. WHATS NEW (2:59)
17. YOURE BLASÉ (2:50)
18. ITS ALL RIGHT WITH ME (2:24)
19. MY OLD FLAME (2:38)
20. DANCING ON THE CEILING (3:40)
21. IT NEVER ENTERED MY MIND (3:01)
22. TOO LATE NOW (3:49)
23. IVE GROWN ACCUSTOMED TO HIS FACE (2:47)
24. SOMETHING I DREAMED LAST NIGHT (2:29)
25. LAST NIGHT WHEN WE WERE YOUNG (2:56)
26. SO BLUE (2:14)
27. I STILL GET A THRILL (THINKING OF YOU) (2:21) *
Total time: 77:29 min.
(*) Bonus Tracks, not on the original LP configuration
Sources:
Tracks #1-12 originally from "Black Coffe" (Decca DL-8358).
Tracks #15-26 originally from "Dream Street" (Decca DL-8411).
Personnel on tracks #1-4 & #7-10:
Peggy Lee (vcl), Pete Candoli (tp), Jimmy Rowles (p), Max Wayne (b), Ed Shaughnessy (d).
Recorded in New York City, April 30, May 1 & May 4, 1953
Personnel on tracks #5-6 & #11-14:
Peggy Lee (vcl), Lou Levy (p), Bill Pitman (g), Buddy Clark (b), Larry Bunker (d, vib), Stella Castellucci (harp).
Recorded in Los Angeles, California, on April 3, 1956
Personnel on tracks #15-27:
Peggy Lee (vcl), Bud Shank (fl, as), Bob Cooper (ts), Lou Levy (p), Stella Castellucci (harp), Larry Bunker (vib, perc), Max Bennett or Buddy Clark (b), Nick Fatool (d). Shorty Rogers & Sy Oliver (arr).
Recorded in Los Angeles, California, June 5 & 7, 1956
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"Whenever I get very quiet and very intense, the power goes right through me. I think about a conversation, so with the use of dynamics, I get my message across."
Peggy Lee
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-Black Coffe
"Peggy Lee left Capitol in 1952 for, among several other reasons, the label's refusal to let her record and release an exotic, tumultuous version of "Lover." Lee was certainly no Mitch Miller songbird, content to loosen her gorgeous pipes on any piece of tripe foisted upon her; she was a superb songwriter with a knowledge of production and arrangement gained from work in big bands and from her husband, Dave Barbour (although the two weren't together at the time). The more open-minded Decca acquiesced to her demand, and watched its investment pay off quickly when the single became her biggest hit in years. Black Coffee was Lee's next major project. Encouraged by longtime Decca A&R Milt Gabler, she hired a small group including trumpeter Pete Candoli and pianist Jimmy Rowles (two of her favorite sidemen) to record an after-hours jazz project similar in intent and execution to Lee Wiley's "Manhattan project" of 1950, Night in Manhattan. While the title-track opener of Black Coffee soon separated itself from the LP -- to be taught forever after during the first period of any Torch Song 101 class -- the album doesn't keep to its concept very long; Lee is soon enough in a bouncy mood for "I've Got You Under My Skin" and very affectionate on "Easy Living." (If there's a concept at work here, it's the vagaries of love.) Listeners should look instead to "It Ain't Necessarily So" or "Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good to You?" for more examples of Lee's quintessentially slow-burn sultriness. Aside from occasionally straying off-concept, however, Black Coffee is an excellent record, spotlighting Lee's ability to shine with every type of group and in any context. When originally recorded and released in 1953, Black Coffee was an eight-song catalog of 78s."
John Bush -All Music Guide
-Dream Street
"Dream Street captures Peggy Lee at her most intimate and melancholy -- a song cycle exploring love and loss in uncompromisingly frank terms, it strips away the saccharine and schmaltz so common among the singer's Decca sessions to effectively create the first truly adult music of her career. Lee occupies the same harrowing emotional territory staked out by Frank Sinatra via the landmark In the Wee Small Hours, investing the material with the kind of heartbreak and longing that belies the whole "easy listening" tag -- this is music shorn of pretense and artifice, as intense as a primal scream yet beautiful in the way only art of this magnitude can be."
Jason Ankeny -All Music Guide
