RATO RECORDS: 1958

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terça-feira, 16 de junho de 2020

CARL STEVENS Debut Album

Original released on LP Mercury SR 60013

(US, 1958)

sexta-feira, 5 de junho de 2020

PEGGY LEE: "Things Are Swingin'"

Original released on LP Capitol T 1049

(US, July 1958)

Midway through a small lull in her live performance career, Peggy Lee recorded the stereo LP "Things Are Swingin'" in Hollywood during May 1958, at the same sessions that produced the biggest hit of her career, "Fever." (Though not on the original LP, it was added to the 2004 reissue as a bonus track.) Still, "Things Are Swingin'" isn't a high point in Lee's career, especially when considered among her many successes of the late '50s (like the following year's "Beauty and the Beat!"). Though her instincts and powers of bewitchment were faultless as ever, she betrayed a few weaknesses in her normally excellent voice (perhaps a result of her semi-retirement at the time), and the ten-piece studio orchestra - including session heavyweights Don Fagerquist, Barney Kessel, Bob Enevoldsen, Howard Roberts, Pete Candoli, and Shelly Manne - isn't given much to work with by conductor Jack Marshall. Scattered moments of brilliance abound, however, including Lee's own title song (a staple of her later live show, written with Marshall), the sleepily sensual "You're Getting to Be a Habit With Me," and "Alright, Okay, You Win," a bluesy lead that became a hit in 1958 alongside "Fever." (John Bush in AllMusic)

PEGGY LEE: "Jump For Joy"

Original released on LP Capitol T 979 (mono)

(US, 1958)

The powers that be at Capitol-EMI haven't been as thorough with their Peggy Lee reissues as they have been with, say, June Christy (a much less commercially successful artist), not to mention Frank Sinatra or Nat "King" Cole. Luckily, in 2009, the DRG label saw fit to put out domestic U.S. reissues of the previously unavailable "The Man I Love" and this "Jump For Joy", from 1957 and 1958 respectively. "Jump For Joy", Peggy Lee's second (and last) album with Nelson Riddle arrangements, was conceived as the extroverted, swinging follow-up to "The Man I Love" (which was itself produced and conducted by none other than Sinatra himself to mark her return to Capitol Records after a five-year absence). At the very least, it succeeded in securing Lee's status on the label with its solid production, classy arrangements, and, of course, her own masterful singing. "Joy" is also notable for including a number of older tunes from the '20s and '30s - songs like "Back In Your Own Back Yard," the Boswell Sisters' "When My Sugar Walks Down The Street," "Aint We Got Fun," Billie Holiday's "What A Little Moonlight Can Do," and Fred Astaire's "Cheek To Cheek." Far from making the album something of a novelty session - both Lee and Riddle can make any material sound fresh and contemporary, anyway - they only add to the bright, insouciant mood the singer and her arranger are trying to establish here. Apart from Sinatra's "Songs For Swingin' Lovers" and "A Swingin' Affair", these are some of Nelson Riddle's most hard-swinging charts. Of course, it all comes down to Peggy Lee's equally superb vocals - she has never sounded more confident or more in charge, as she looks forward to a renewed and successful association with the label where she first became a major star. (Richard Mortiflogio in AllMusic)