Time Machine Yes Or No (Peggy Lee Division)

[JSngry]

...get Peggy Lee to do a CTI album arranged by Don Sebesky? Ca.1972?

Leaning yes in possibility, but realityising no.

Willing to listen, though. Convince me!

Motivation of thought - hearing some of her 70s work and not feeling that anybody involved understood why they shouldn't be doing what they did the way they did it, and thinking that, DUH, CTI would not have that problem with doing that with all that.

Problem - Peggy Lee by then in that arena...probably not going to show up no matter what.

But all things being unreal, in theory...well, would you?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Well, certainly not a Kudu album with Hank Crawford, Johnny 'Hammond' Smith and Grover Washington, with arrangements by Bob James, Dave Matthews or Pee Wee Ellis

I don't remember hearing any Peggy Lee in the seventies.

I think I'm happy with Madame Foo Foo, with Groove Holmes on Groove Merchant. I wouldn't have put her on Kudu, either.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Let's liven the thread up

This

not that

or even those

MG

[Hoppy T. Frog]

I thought this was going to be a "would you have done her back in the day" type of question.

[JSngry]

Lee's 1971 Capitol album Where Did They Go? (partially arranged by Sebeskey) includes blatant fails like "My Sweet Lord" & ""Sing", but there's a few keepers, notably a really gorgeous version of "I Was Born In Love With You" with a wholly uncompromisingly expansive chart by Sebesky that begs for that Creed Taylor close miking/RVG reverb combo & Ron Carters Bass Hum Of Infinity, but instead of Creed Taylor making a whole album of properly sounding proper material like this for CTI, no, this is Snuff Garrett on Capitol, and...no...that's just not good enough.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Oh, Snuffy Garrett! Thought he was at Liberty for ever.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Seriously, Lou DOnaldson would - or at least COULD - have been a lot better at CTI than at Blue Note in those days. Even with DOn Sebesky's arrangements to phone in his parts for.

However, he'd probably have been even better at Groove Merchant.

I suppose, really, ANYBODY would have been better ANYWHERE ELSE than Blue Note in those days. Oh, except Columbia.

MG

[Matthew]

Call me crazy, but I actually think a Peggy Lee / Dave Matthew album would have turned out very nice. He did a nice job with Nina Simone & Esther Phillips. YMMV

[JSngry]

The thing about Don Sebesky was that he was a total pro, meaning that if the client/job wanted/called for bullshit, then bullshit he'd give you. But if you wanted something really good, he could do that too. Both abilities are on ample display on this Peggy Lee album.

Get them both over to CTI, let that thing do its thing, I think it might have been pretty nice.

Call me crazy, but I actually think a Peggy Lee / Dave Matthew album would have turned out very nice. He did a nice job with Nina Simone & Esther Phillips. YMMV

Not crazy.

[jazzbo]

I wish Peggy and Duke woulda coulda shoulda done a series of albums in the 'sixties.

[Teasing the Korean]

Well, certainly not a Kudu album with Hank Crawford, Johnny 'Hammond' Smith and Grover Washington, with arrangements by Bob James, Dave Matthews or Pee Wee Ellis

Can't stand those Bob James arrangements. Way too commercial, a precursor to smooth jazz.

I imagine a Sebeskey-arranged Peggy Lee album on CTI, circa 1972, with three long tracks on each side, delirious, introspective quasi-soul/psych.

Maybe "The World is a Ghetto" could be one of the tracks.

I'm also thinking an Edu Lobo tune, maybe "Ponteio," "Crystal Illusion," or "Reza."

And if we push it back to 1973, maybe there can be a vocal version of Lonnie Liston Smith's "Rejuvenation," with lyrics by either Leon Thomas, Eugene McDaniels, Gene Lees, or the Bergmans.

It would not be a typical Peggy Lee album, but that is the idea.

Edited June 22, 2012 by Teasing the Korean

[crisp]

I love later Peggy Lee (so wrong but in many ways so right), but Where Did They Go? has never grabbed me apart from I Don't Know How to Love Him and Losing My Mind. I've never noticed I Was Born In Love With You, but as it's a Bergmans lyric I'll give it a closer listen.

I do however have a soft spot for her previous album, Make It With You, arranged by Benny Golson. Some pleasant soft-rock songs in there and it works as a whole piece. Sebesky always strikes me as a track-by-track man rather than an album man, like Quincy Jones, but Golson knows how to put an album together.

As for CTI, that label seemed even less interested in singers than Blue Note did. Lee would probably have been submerged in a sea of instruments, but it would have been a nice sound I'm sure.

[Jim Alfredson]

If I had a time machine, the last thing I'd think about is producing a Peggy Lee date on CTI.

[Head Man]

If I had a time machine, the last thing I'd think about is producing a Peggy Lee date on CTI.

What would you think about doing then?

[Larry Kart]

If I had a time machine, the last thing I'd think about is producing a Peggy Lee date on CTI.

What would you think about doing then?

Catching King Oliver at the Lincoln Gardens.

Jim -- What do you think of this one?

http://www.peggylee.com/new/0512_leiberstoller.html

Some of the songs are too neo-cabaret for my tastes but "A Little White Ship" is sublime, and scary too.

[JSngry]

Don't know it. Peggy Lee has not really been a priority of mine, but I recently found some LPs cheap and decided to spend the money for a listen.

It sounds like it could be good, though, although I'm still thinking about the sonic Quaalude that was CTI as being something that Peggy Lee might have thrived being enveloped by.

[Teasing the Korean]

I hope you guys know about the Peggy Lee Placidyl album, which includes a pre-printed signed notecard thanking doctors for keeping her medicated:

[JSngry]

I hope you guys know about the Peggy Lee Placidyl album, which includes a pre-printed signed notecard thanking doctors for keeping her medicated:

Didn't get the notecard with mine...damn used LPs...

You're no doubt familiar with The Warm World of Jack Sheldon, eh? Heard that today for the first time & immediately thought what a great Peggy Lee CTI album this would make...in fact, it's got Sebesky's tune "Sweet Talk" on it, which Lee would later cover.

[Teasing the Korean]

Notecard with the Peggy Lee Placidyl album:

Dear Doctor:

For an entertainer, applause is a very personal and immediate sign of appreciation, and so this album is my way of applauding you in the medical profession. It's a special album that we've worked out with Abbott Laboratories, and my great hope is that it will give you pleasure - perhaps at a time when you have a real need for a moment's relaxation.

With thanks for all you've done,

Peggy Lee

* * * * * * * * * *

I think that the fictional CTI Peggy Lee album I described earlier would have provided me with the pleasure and relaxation that Peggy Lee wished for her doctors.

Full disclosure: I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV.

[robertoart]

If I had a time machine, the last thing I'd think about is producing a Peggy Lee date on CTI.

That's totally understandable. She should always be on the majors.

wikipedia says......

Never afraid to fight for what she believed in, Lee passionately insisted that musicians be equitably compensated for their work. Although she realized litigation had taken a toll on her health, Lee often quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson on the topic: "God will not have his work be made manifest by cowards."

Edited June 23, 2012 by freelancer