Peggy Lee - Black Coffee (1956) [24 bit FLAC] vinyl

Peggy Lee - Black Coffee (1956) [24 bit FLAC] vinyl

Genre: Jazz
Styles: Vocal Jazz, Standards
Source: Ace of Hearts AH 5 (Mono pressing 1961)
Codec: FLAC
Bitrate: ~ 1,500 kbps
Bit Depth: 24
Sampling Rate: 96 KHz

A1 Black Coffee
A2 I've Got You Under My Skin
A3 Easy Living
A4 My Heart Belongs to Daddy
A5 It Ain't Necessarily So
A6 Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You

B1 A Woman Alone With the Blues
B2 I Didn't Know What Time It Was
B3 (Ah, the Apple Trees) When the World Was Young
B4 Love Me or Leave Me
B5 You're My Thrill
B6 There's a Small Hotel

Rip Info (not my rip)

Cleaned with Spin Clean Record Washer MKII
with distilled water and Spin Clean fluid
Technics SL-J2 Linear Tracking TT
Grado Prestige Red Cartridge
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD USB Audio System
Integrated phono preamp
Goldwave 5.68, Audacity 2.02, ClickRepair 3.8.4
Scans: Mustek ScanExpress Pro USB 2400, Photoshop 9

Review

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. Three years later, Decca commissioned an LP expansion of the record, for which Lee recorded several more songs.