Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Black Coffee (Peggy Lee album)

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Released
  
1956 12" LP

Length
  
34:52

Artist
  
Peggy Lee

Label
  
Essential Jazz Classics

Recorded
  
1953, 1956

Producer
  
Cy Godfrey CD reissue

Release date
  
1956

Genres
  
Jazz, Vocal jazz

Black Coffee (Peggy Lee album) httpsimgdiscogscomA8Aoep3fcFYtgeVgZI1sry0

Black Coffee (1953)
  
Songs from Pete Kelly's Blues (1955)

Similar
  
Peggy Lee albums, Vocal jazz albums

Black Coffee is the first album by Peggy Lee, released in the ten-inch format in 1953 on Decca Records in the United States, catalogue DL 5482. In 1956, at the request of the record label, Lee recorded four more songs for a reissue of the album in the twelve-inch LP format, catalogue DL 8358. The 1956 cover is pictured at the right.

Contents

Peggy lee black coffee


History

By 1953, Lee had been recording professionally since joining the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1941, but had only released songs on 78s or 45s. This was her first opportunity to record an album, and in the early 1950s, common record company wisdom reserved the 12" LP for classical music and, in the case of Decca and Columbia Records, cast recordings of Broadway musicals. This practice would end soon after this LP was recorded, ten-inch records discontinued generally by the mid-1950s, Lee adding four songs at sessions in 1956 to expand the running time up to that of the twelve-inch LP.

Reception

Neither the 10" nor the 12" release made the Popular Album Chart, the chart expanding to a listing of ten to thirty LPs on average during 1956. Joni Mitchell has declared the album among her favorites, leading off her torch song album of 2000, Both Sides Now, with a selection from Black Coffee, "You're My Thrill". In his book Jazz Singing, Will Friedwald names the album as one of his desert island discs.

Sessions

Three separate sessions in 1953 yielded the initial eight tracks for the ten-inch LP, all at Decca Studios, 50 West 57th Street in New York City, on April 30, May 1, May 4. The 1956 sessions to record the additional four tracks needed for the twelve-inch LP were done with different personnel at the Decca studios in Hollywood on April 3.

On October 26, 2004, the album was reissued as part of the Verve Records Master Edition series, Verve and Decca now both units within the giant Universal Music Group conglomerate. The track sequence followed that of the 1956 twelve-inch reissue. No original producer is listed, although Milt Gabler is mentioned in the reissue credits as Decca A&R.

1953 sessions

  • Peggy Lee - vocals
  • Pete Candoli - trumpet
  • Jimmy Rowles - piano
  • Max Wayne - bass
  • Ed Shaughnessy - drums
  • 1956 sessions

  • Peggy Lee - vocals
  • Stella Castellucci - harp
  • Lou Levy - piano
  • Bill Pitman - guitar
  • Buddy Clark - bass
  • Larry Bunker - drums, vibraphone, percussion
  • Side one

    1. "Black Coffee" (Sonny Burke, Paul Francis Webster) – 3:05
    2. "I've Got You Under My Skin" (Cole Porter) – 2:28
    3. "Easy Living" (Ralph Rainger, Leo Robin) – 2:44
    4. "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" (Porter) – 2:09

    Side two

    1. "A Woman Alone With the Blues" (Willard Robison) – 3:12
    2. "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) – 2:18
    3. "(Ah, the Apple Trees) When the World Was Young" (M. Philippe-Gerard, Angele Vannier, Johnny Mercer) – 3:16
    4. "Love Me or Leave Me" (Gus Kahn, Walter Donaldson) – 2:08

    Side one

    1. "Black Coffee" – 3:05
    2. "I've Got You Under My Skin" – 2:28
    3. "Easy Living" – 2:44
    4. "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" – 2:09
    5. "It Ain't Necessarily So" (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, DuBose Heyward) – 3:22
    6. "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You?" (Don Redman, Andy Razaf) – 3:22

    Side two

    1. "A Woman Alone With the Blues" – 3:12
    2. "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" – 2:18
    3. "When the World Was Young" – 3:16
    4. "Love Me or Leave Me" – 2:08
    5. "You're My Thrill" (Sidney Clare, Jay Gorney) – 3:22
    6. "There's a Small Hotel" (Rodgers, Hart) – 2:44

    Songs

    1Black Coffee3:08
    2I've Got You Under My Skin2:33
    3Easy Living2:48

    References

    Black Coffee (Peggy Lee album) Wikipedia